Craig Brown Quotes

The best critics do not worry about what the author might think. That would be like a detective worrying about what a suspect might think. Instead, they treat the reader as an intelligent friend, and describe the book as honestly, and as entertainingly, as possible.

Craig Brown

• Book
• Friend
• Worry
• Intelligent
• Author

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Quotes to Explore

• I developed a mania for Fitzgerald - by the time I'd graduated from high school I'd read everything he'd written. I started with 'The Great Gatsby' and moved on to 'Tender Is the Night,' which just swept me away. Then I read 'This Side of Paradise,' his novel about Princeton - I literally slept with that book under my pillow for two years.

  

  A. Scott Berg
  • Time
  • Great
  • School

• The problem with writing a monthly book is that you're going through your work like a man running for a bus, red-faced and out of breath. There isn't time for reflection or critical self-examination.

  

  J. Michael Straczynski
  • Time
  • Work
  • Writing

• There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.

  

  Beck
  • Different
  • Writing
  • Song

• I am an intelligent river which has reflected successively all the banks before which it has flowed by meditating only on the images offered by those changing shores.

  

  Victor Hugo
  • Intelligent
  • River
  • Reflected

• After 20 years, a million written words, and nine rejected novels, I finally landed a book contract.

  

  J. A. Konrath
  • Book
  • Words
  • Years

• What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.

  

  Pat Barker
  • Hate
  • Better
  • Author

• I enjoy it too much - even if I knew I'd never get a book published, I would still write. I enjoy the experience of getting thoughts and ideas and plots and characters organised into this narrative framework.

  

  Iain Banks
  • Experience
  • Book
  • Ideas

• When you're heartbroken, you're at your most creative - you have to channel all your energies into something else to not think about it. Contentment is a creativity killer, but don't worry - I'm very capable of making myself discontented.

  

  Florence Welch Florence and the Machine
  • Myself
  • Worry
  • Creativity

• My father was in Congress when I was born. He was mayor my whole life from when I was in grade school - first grade - to when I went away to college.

  

  Nancy Pelosi
  • Life
  • School
  • Father

• All writers, in all viewpoints, must choose which information and scenes will be presented, and in which order. In that sense, the author is always represented as a point of view in a work of fiction. His hand can always be detected by the discerning.

  

  Nancy Kress
  • Work
  • Hand
  • Information

• It's easier to release an ebook than a print book.

  

  J. A. Konrath
  • Book
  • Easier
  • Print

• I don't really know what the Great American Novel is. I like the idea that there could be one now, and I wouldn't object if someone thought it was mine, but I don't claim to have written that - I just wrote my book.

  

  Rachel Kushner
  • Great
  • Book
  • American

• Looking after a disabled child pushes you to the limits of what you can cope with... physically, emotionally. It's because there's this baby, this child that you love more than you can possibly imagine, in some way more than a normal child because you worry about them 24 hours a day. But at the same time you are so, so proud of them.

  

  Samantha Cameron
  • Time
  • Love
  • Day

• I have two daughters: One an open book, one a locked box. So the question of privacy is a challenging one. How much do kids need? How much should we give? How do we prepare them to live in a world where the very notion of privacy opens a generational chasm?

  

  Nancy Gibbs
  • World
  • Live
  • Book

• You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

  

  Madeleine L'Engle
  • Children
  • Book
  • Difficult

• Book sales and teens reading is always a fantastic thing, but we should also be celebrating and consuming the huge wealth of U.K. and U.K.-based writing and illustrating talent. Authors such as Charlie Higson, Darren Shan, Holly Smale, Tanya Byrne, Catherine Johnson, Sophie Mckenzie, to name but a few.

  

  Malorie Blackman
  • Writing
  • Book
  • Reading

• A book tour is not a good opportunity to let your mind wander. You have to pay attention, remember salespeople's and interviewers' names, succinctly summarize your book in a 'selling' way, and so on.

  

  Ian Frazier
  • Good
  • Mind
  • Book

• The biggest mistake you can make is assuming that creativity will hit you all at once and the muse will carry you to the end of the book on feather wings while 'Foster the People' plays gently in the background. Storytelling is work. Pleasurable work, usually, but it is work.

  

  Maggie Stiefvater
  • People
  • Work
  • Book

• Would a good friend, a smart friend, encourage you to do something as dishonorable as not pay a bill you're morally and legally obligated to pay? I don't think so.

  

  Dave Ramsey
  • Good
  • Friend
  • Smart

• I'm not a master; I'm just a hard-working filmmaker. I would like everyone to see me as a friend rather than a master.

  

  John Woo
  • Friend

• I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense. Still, you know, words mean more than we mean to express when we use them; so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer means. So, whatever good meanings are in the book, I'm glad to accept as the meaning of the book.

  

  Lewis Carroll
  • Book
  • Mean
  • Use

• If I commit to pros, I really got to stick to it, and I think it was a good decision.

  

  Denis Shapovalov
  • Good
  • Decision

• The best critics do not worry about what the author might think. That would be like a detective worrying about what a suspect might think. Instead, they treat the reader as an intelligent friend, and describe the book as honestly, and as entertainingly, as possible.

  

  Craig Brown
  • Book
  • Friend
  • Worry