Rupert Brooke Quotes

A book may be compared to your neighbour: if it be good it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early.

I had started to feel that somewhere in the second half of the 20th century, the idea of page-turning as a good thing had been lost. You were getting books that were the equivalent of absolutely beautifully prepared dishes of food that didn't taste like anything much.

A good book, in the language of the book-sellers, is a salable one; in that of the curious, a scarce one; in that of men of sense, a useful and instructive one.

I honestly don't think Peter is that interesting without Harriet - the only exception being 'The Nine Tailors', which is such a good book it doesn't really matter whether he's got a consort or not.

Sometimes novels are considered 'important' in the way medicine is - they taste terrible and are difficult to get down your throat, but are good for you.

I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.

There are good books and there are bad books, period, that's the distinction.

The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.

The whole purpose of books is that we read them, and if you find you can't, it might not be your inadequacy that's to blame. 'Good' books can be pretty awful sometimes.

The two most common charges against the older fiction, that it pleased wickedly and that it taught nothing, had broken down before the discovery, except in illiberal sects, that the novel is fitted both for honest use and for pleasure.

Very wonderful books might be published, and very terrible books might be published.

A good book is a good book. End of story.

No one writes a great book every time out, or even a good book.

Bad literature is a form of treason.

A text may be superbly written, exquisitely subtle, deeply meaningful, but still seem like a luxury extra, something we add to the already well-stocked store of our reading experience.

But even gold is not everything: and only a fanatic, and a rather foolish fanatic, would say that this style of fiction summed up and exhausted all the good that fiction could give and do.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

No one ever knows if a book is good until they read the book.

I attempt to write a good novel. Whether it is literature or not is something that will be decided by the ages, not by me and not by a pack of critics around the globe.

It's hard to judge literary merit.

Ideally, we should like to define a good book as one which 'permits, invites, or compels' good reading

A sure sign of a good book is that you like it more the older you get.

Good books are irrefutable, and bad books refute themselves.

I can speak of my own criterion for judging whether or not a book is good or bad. I ask of it a single question, From how deep and true an impulse did it spring? Was it written merely to shock? Only to make money? Or was it written to create something more perfect and more lasting than the life experience from which it came?

What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.