Jay Asher Quotes

We all have the people we follow on Tumblr whose opinions or taste we respect. And I think because you see so much more variety of opinions and everything on the internet, it's less decided that something is good or bad. It's more like we all just sort of like what we like.

The one thing I have learned about editing over the years is that you have to edit and publish out of your own tastes, enthusiasms, and concerns, and not out of notions or guesswork about what other people might like to read.

Not everyone's going to like my music. People might not like my music, because I'm just not their style of music that they like to listen to.

There are lots of things that everyone else likes that I hate. So I feel that audience rights are very important. I just want people to hear it and decide if they like it or don't like it as they would with anything else.

What people value in their books—and thus what they count as literature—really tells you more about them than it does about the book.

I like Joan of Arc best of all my books; and it is the best; I know it perfectly well.

You can't really make people be any different than what they are.

You have to want to have taste. Some people have inherently bad taste. Their problem is really not the bad taste -- that can be fixed -- but that they don't know they have it!

As readers, we remain in the nursery stage so long as we cannot distinguish between taste and judgment, so long, that is, as the only possible verdicts we can pass on a book are two: this I like; this I don't like. For an adult reader, the possible verdicts are five: I can see this is good and I like it; I can see this is good but I don't like it; I can see this is good and, though at present I don't like it, I believe that with perseverance I shall come to like it; I can see that this is trash but I like it; I can see that this is trash and I don't like it.

One can't prescribe books, even the best books, to people unless one knows a good deal about each individual person.

You have to be able to differentiate between the different areas of life. It shows that we're all separate people, we're all different, but we're all the same.

I can listen to all different sorts of music. I don't really care about The Next Big Thing.

We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice.

I think my music is like anchovies - some people like it, some people get nauseous.

You're always learning so much from people and how they work and what their processes are. Some people like to listen to music before they get into it, and some people can talk all the way up to, "Action!" Everybody is different.

One's favorite book is as elusive as one's favorite pudding.

To a great extent, I still write for myself, write what amuses me. Fortunately, I have a quirky sort of strange sense of humor that appeals to other people and that's good. I still sort of write for myself though there are some areas of the book I feel I have to put in and I feel I have to deliver.

You can only go so far in analyzing each and every one person's opinion because they are often quite different. You just have to trust your instincts and hope that if someone doesn't like your idea, you can prove them wrong in the final process. In the end, you can please some of the people some of the time, but that's about all you can do.

I just always think, 'Do I like it?' And if I like it, maybe other people will come and like it too.

J.P. Donleavy - now he's one writer I am consistent with. He's written books that I can definitely connect with. He has amazing insights which other people missed out on. Even with his descriptions of Northern Ireland.

I really like looking at other people's book collections when I'm at someone's house. I think it is an amazing cross section of a person's brain and lifestyle. I think everyone should photograph their book spines and make a website. Seriously.

There are no bad books any more than there are ugly women.

People make great films. I just don't have the eyes to watch them.

Making books has always felt very connected to my bookselling experience, that of wanting to draw people's attention to things that I liked, to shape things that I liked into new shapes.