“Literature suffers because writers give their books to colleagues who will then write glowing reviews or saccharine introductions.”

“The artist doesn't have time to listen to the critics. The ones who want to be writers read the reviews, the ones who want to write don't have the time to read reviews. ”

“Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.”

“I skip the introduction. If the book goes in the trash, I want it to go because of my thoughts on it, not because of some Asshole's thoughts who wrote the introduction.”

“If nobody talks about books, if they are not discussed or somehow contended with, literature ceases to be a conversation, ceases to be dynamic. Most of all, it ceases to be intimate. It degenerates into a monologue or a mutter. An unreviewed book is a struck bell that gives no resonance. Without reviews, literature would be oddly mute in spite of all those words on all those pages of all those books. Reviewing makes of reading a participant sport, not a spectator sport.”

“I want to be a writer, not an engineer who writes books.”