“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.”

“There's always time to read. Don't trust a writer who doesn't read. It's like eating food prepared by a cook who doesn't eat.”

“I would like to spare the time and effort of hack reviewers and, generally, persons who move their lips when reading.”

“[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.”

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”

“I was always determined to find just the right book for that one child who maybe was a reluctant reader. I knew there was a book to turn him on to reading. I just had to find it. I do have a special place in my heart for kids who maybe have trouble reading or who just don't want to for various reasons. It's always my goal to write books that will somehow entice them to want to read.”

“Reviewers are usually people who would have been poets, historians, biographers, etc., if they could; they have tried their talents at one or the other, and have failed; therefore they turn critics.”

“An author that's in now might be out in ten years. And vice-versa. Who knows when the final sifting is done, in the year 2050, say, who will be read of my generation? You'd like to think you will be one. But there has to be a constant weeding that goes on. The Victorians read all kinds of writers who we don't have time for now. Who reads Thackeray? An educated person reads Dickens, or reads some Dickens. But Thackeray?”

“New Directions is a reviewer’s nightmare; it’s enough punishment to read it all, without writing about it too.”

“Real writers are those who want to write, need to write, have to write.”