Jane Porter Quotes

It's quite humbling when you see the list of writers who have been president of PEN and you know some of the things they've done.

Is the prestige conferred by the Man Booker prize for the book or me? I would prefer it on the book and for me to be treated ordinarily.

Since, therefore, individuals as well as the public are so indebted to these writers for the benefits they enjoy, I think them not only entitled to the honour of palms and crowns, but even to be numbered among the gods.

People aren't quite sure what it means when a book is a Booker Prize winner. They're not quite sure what is being recommended, what literary values it stands for, because every year it stands for something different.

I don't think if you're serious about literature your library is filled with award-winning books.

In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life.

There has long been an argument in New York about what, exactly, the purpose of book awards ought to be. One model sees them as a celebration of the unquestioned best and brightest, a triumphal parade for marquee authors who have published in a given year.

Oh, I've become immune to the Booker. I think we need something a little more like the Pulitzer prize, where there isn't this great race.

I'm never going to be in danger of getting the Nobel Prize for literature.

I'm not one of those writers that sits worrying about posthumous fame.

Saul Bellow never took my advice when he was my friend.

Negative books can be bestsellers, but seldom classics.

I'm sure I wouldn't have been asked to judge the Man Booker if it weren't for 'Downton.'

I wanted to see my name on the cover of a book. If your name is in the Library of Congress, you're immortal.

Whenever anyone calls me 'The new J..K. Rowling,' I think, 'What's wrong with the old one?'

Authors should be honored only for their works.

I'm glad a genre writer has got a knighthood, but stunned that it was me.

I'm not at all snobby about book prizes and how they pollute the world of literature. Just like with the Olympics, a little bit of competition gets people truly engrossed in the business of literature.

What makes a publishing house great? The easy answer is the consistency with which it produces books of value over a lengthy period of time.

I thought they would never select an Eastern writer for the Nobel. I was surprised.

I am, of course, greatly honoured to win the Booker, which is one of the great literary prizes in the world.

I don't know that I've gotten much feedback directly from the literary world; sometimes I doubt even the notion that there is a literary world, though I guess there is or was.

The Booker Prize is a big, popular prize for big, popular books, and that's the way it should be.

I hate to tell you this, but I did not know what the National Book Award was when I got the call.

I don't really know what the Great American Novel is. I like the idea that there could be one now, and I wouldn't object if someone thought it was mine, but I don't claim to have written that - I just wrote my book.