Jerry Pournelle Quotes

I get upset about what is taken as great literature and what is cute and exotic.

To me, characters are at the heart of great literature.

I feel reviewers are tougher on comedies in general. They don't take them seriously, and the ones that get great reviews are not necessarily the ones that I like.

Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.

Being influential is not the mark of a great book.

The novel is a highly corrupt medium, after all - in the end the vast majority of them simply aren't that great, and are destined to be forgotten.

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

A scrupulous man will never produce a great novel.

No one bothered reading the books and understanding - and again, I'm not being high-falutin' about it - but I think our books are great literature with great metaphors of real life dealing with fears and hopes.

My books are water; those of the great geniuses are wine - everybody drinks water.

It seems to me that the novel as a medium has a very low signal-to-noise ratio. By which I mean: there are a lot of novels published, but the vast majority of them don't represent major contributions to the medium.

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be that have tried it.

Another great evil arising from this desire to be thought rich; or rather, from the desire not to be thought poor, is the destructive thing which has been honored by the name of 'speculation'; but which ought to be called Gambling.

That's what people expect: They don't want to read a slight novel. People don't want to waste their time on anything less than 'great.'

Good books are irrefutable, and bad books refute themselves.

All great popular literature today one day will be seen as great literature and will no longer be seen as popular literature.

Literature is well enough, as a time-passer, and for the improvement and general elevation and purification of mankind, but it has no practical value.

The novels that get praised in the NY Review of Books aren't worth reading. Ninety-seven percent of science fiction is adolescent rubbish, but good science fiction is the best and only literature of our times.

Great books conserve time.

If 'Pygmalion' is not good enough for your friends with its own verbal music, their talent must be altogether extraordinary.

Often with good sentiments we produce bad literature.

Science fiction tends to be philosophy for stupid people.

The best science fiction is as good as the best fiction in any field.

You've got to remind yourself all the time that you're being measured against the fashions of the day, and if your work truly has any kind of staying power, well, people will be talking about it in 20, 30 years.

You will be remembered, in the long haul, for the quality of your work, not the quantity of your work. No one evaluates Picasso based on the number of paintings he churned out.