Michael Gruber Quotes

Sometimes a book is better than it ever had a right to be because of the history the reader brings to the reading and because of the methods educators use to bring a particular story alive.

Writers are stewards of the culture. Publishers, librarians, bookstore owners. We're all in this together. To write books that are gripping, important, that people want to have, is to keep publishing alive.

James Joyce actually is rewarding you in all of these incredible ways.

James Baldwin is probably, for me and for many other people, one of the most extraordinary authors in this country, black or white. And he is somebody who changed my life.

I definitely don't aspire to writing that's 'timeless,' whatever that means.

I think every writer wants future generations to read what he has written.

One of the great pleasures of reading Tom Wolfe - of still reading Tom Wolfe - is the sense of awe he consistently inspires.

Writers want to be reread. They want to think that their words don't just flash by but deserve some reflection.

I think, what's the point of writing a book that you would get in one sitting?

A novel which survives, which withstands and outlives time, does do something more than merely survive. It does not stand still. It accumulates round itself the understanding of all these persons who bring to it something of their own. It acquires associations, it becomes a form of experience in itself, so that two people who meet can often make friends, find an approach to each other, because of this one great common experience they have had.

Our best history is still poetry.

A book exists at the intersection of the author's subconscious and the reader's response.

A book brings its own history to the reader.

I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.

This sounds corny, but I once told a kid when I was in a the library conference, the best - not the best, what I really hope for is that someday 20, 30 years from now, some kid, 12-year-old, 15-year-old, in Des Moines will be going through the stacks, if they have stacks anymore - they probably won't - and find a book of mine and get something from it.

Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?

He [Samuel Beckett] is great, a very great writer. Any modern writer is bound to be influenced by [James] Joyce. Of course, by Beckett as well.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book.

Literary texts do not exist on bookshelves: they are processes of signification materialized only in the practice of reading. For literature to happen, the reader is quite as vital as the author.

A good book is an event in my life.

Walden is the only book I own, although there are some others unclaimed on my shelves. Every man, I think, reads one book in his life, and this is mine. It is not the best book I ever encountered, perhaps, but it is for me the handiest, and I keep it about me in much the same way one carries a handkerchief - for relief in moments of defluxion or despair.

She can take a year to read something, whereas I like a book that becomes more important in my life that life itself. When I was in the middle of 'Red Storm Rising' by Tom Clancy - which was not selected for the Man Booker shortlist - you could have taken my liver out and fed it to the dog. And I wouldn't have noticed.

I don't care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

To speak today of a famous novelist is like speaking of a famous cabinetmaker or speedboat designer. Adjective is inappropriate to noun.

All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake.