David Bergen Quotes

I had written a book. For various reasons, the publishing industry had decided that my book was going to be 'important.' The novel had taken me 12-and-a-half years to write, and after being with the book for so long, I had no real perspective on the merits or demerits of what I had written. I hoped it was good, but feared that it wasn't.

I always grew up with the idea that in order to be a successful writer, I should have a book published.

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

I approached writing a story for the CBC Literary Awards as a mercenary venture - $5,000 for one story, not bad. Now, how do you win it? Jurors are wading through skyscrapers of paper, looking for one story that stands out.

It took a brave editor in the U.S. to sign a contract for Dancing Girls, and without her belief in the book, I'm not sure it would ever have found its way into print.

I said in my acceptance speech that I hope that readers remember this not as the year I won the Booker, but the year that there were six extraordinary books on the shortlist.

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

You can write the best book you can, and that might still not be enough. Appeal isn't something that most writers can't strive for or identify. It's something even the best agents and editors can't always identify.

I believe if you write a great book, the chances are it'll get a great reception.

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.

Generally, literary prizes are significant not for who the winner is but the discussion they create around books.

I know from an editor's point of view or a publisher's point of view it's easier to slot me into a particular niche. But I know that I'd be bored unless I wrote a book that in some senses was a challenge.

People generally don't recognize how long it takes to conceive, publish, and write a book.

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

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

I've probably written some books - I know I've written some books that were more interesting to me than to a large audience, but that was mostly when I was first getting started in academia and writing for a narrow audience.

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.

It is a pity, in my opinion, that no prize exists for the writer who best refrains from adding to the world's bad books.

Hillary Clinton wrote a book. She got paid. I don't understand why I can't.

'Ancillary Sword' picked up the Locus and the BSFA, which surprised the heck out of me.

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.

I wanted to see if I could write a good book.

I just wrote a book, but don't go out and buy it yet, because I don't think it's finished yet.

I've written a lot of books in my time, and to write a book about Joe McCarthy and have some of the major media paying attention, I'm not used to that.

I was twenty-seven when I began to write seriously, and after two years of rejections, my first book, 'The One in the Middle is the Green Kangaroo,' was accepted for publication.