“I picture several reviewers of my own books as passing a long future lodged between Brutus and Judas in the jaws of Satan.”

“[On book reviewing] I will only turn down a book if I know I won't be able to muster enough interest to read the bloody thing. Or if I realize that I despise the author, and that I'm just going to become hysterical in my dispraise. A couple of times in my life I've disobeyed my own rule, and later regretted it. […] It's a delicate business. All too often, if one writes a favorable notice, it's seen as a product of the old-boy network, and if one dispraises a book, it's seen as envy. Nobody seems able to accept that I review books as a book reviewer, not as a competing novelist. When I review, I'm being as honest as I can. And I'm saying to the reading public — the minuscule segment of the reading public that reads reviews — that this is my judgment.”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

“If I begin my book with a review of the coup, it is only to show that my abiding interests for Australia did not end with it. They shall end only with a long and fortunate life.”

Gough Whitlam (1916–2014) Australian politician, 21st Prime Minister of Australia

“It (my book) is a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that have passed between God and my soul, before I could subject mine to the will of Jesus, my Master, in whose service I have now found perfect freedom. (Maycock, A L, Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding. SPCK, London, 1938)”

George Herbert (1593–1633) Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest

“When I used to picture forever, it was always with the same boy. In my dreams, my future was set. A sure thing. This isn’t the way I’d pictured it. … The future is unclear. But it’s still mine.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

“In the preliminary pages, the list of books "by the same author" shows that during the past fifty years I have written a dozen books on medieval Indian history beginning from 1950 onwards. As usual these have been reviewed in journals in India and abroad, bestowing both praise and blame as per the custom of the reviewers. However, during the last fifteen years or so, some of my books have received special attention of a certain brand of scholars for adverse criticism. Although this gives me publicity and raises demand for my books because such reviews arouse curiosity of readers, it also provides me with an opportunity to defend myself from my detractors determined to denigrate my work. It is not customary to answer the reviewers - they have their right of judgement - but when a systematic smear campaign is launched criticising everything that I say, without a single word of appreciation for anything, a rebuttal is called for, more so when a connection and not mere coincidence is discernible between the uncharitable review of one of my books in a British journal and some other harsh reviews by a group of Aligarh historians in Indian historical journals.”

K. S. Lal book Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India

“I was much plagued by Satan, until I found that it was God who was tempting me; then the anguish of him passed out of my soul for ever.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

“I abide by a rule concerning reviews: I will never ask, neither in writing nor in person, that a word be put in about my book…. One feels cleaner this way. When someone asks that his book be reviewed he risks running up against a vulgarity offensive to authorial sensibilities.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

“I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

“My father was a violinist, my mother a pianist. I was born into a world of music... The practicing of my father's pupils accompanied every thought and action of my childish life.... Then when I was thirty [c. 1906], my career as musician was brought to an end by Vollard [art-dealer in Paris] who bought all the pictures I possessed, pictures which I had painted over several years with unbounded enthusiasm during such hours of freedom as I was able to spare between [music]-lessons to my pupils.”

Maurice de Vlaminck (1876–1958) French painter