Jane Hawking Quotes

I really don't think of myself as a science writer.

I know that many authors say editors don't edit anymore, but that's not been true in my experience.

I've noticed that, with many of the authors I like, I tend to think I would dislike them as human beings or that there'd be a healthy amount of debate if I ever did meet them.

Criticism is part of being in the marketplace. If you can't take a bit of criticism, you shouldn't bother publishing a book.

A fictionalised memoir of my father would be a failure as a novel.

I learned that lesson a long time ago. When you write popular fiction you're going to get bashed by critics.

As authors, we all expect criticism from time to time, and we all have our ways of coping with unfriendly reviews.

My Life in CIA is the first time that I've ever written a story in my own name.

After writing each novel, I would spend days poring over suggestions from my editor.

I had a very high-grade publisher tell me I was incapable of writing a memoir.

I have a confession to make. For years, I earned a living - or a sort of living - writing negative book reviews.

You get a bad review with a novel, and it hurts. But I imagine if you get a bad review with a memoir, it hurts more because you can always say, 'Well, they didn't like my characters,' but when you're the character, it's like, 'Oh, yeah, they actually didn't like me.'

I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.

I've had editors over the years who couldn't find a clue if it was stapled to their butt.

I hate to badmouth any book or writer, because I know how it feels to be on the other end of that.

In the two novels I have published, it was my fortune at different times, and from different persons, to hear the most unqualified censure long before it was possible for me to hear the voice of the public. But my temper was not altered, nor my courage subdued.

'Something Borrowed' was initially titled 'Rolling the Dice,' but my editor said it sounded like a men's gambling memoir.

A good part of the work is just reading a manuscript and coming to the office. I can't imagine wanting to even read an article about book publishing.

Obama is a very fine writer with an excellent command of language. His memoir 'Dreams From My Father' is a fine book, but it will not rank as one of the great autobiographies.

When you see 'editor' on a book, there are many permutations of what that title can mean.

Properly speaking, we learn from those books only that we cannot judge. The author of a book that I am competent to criticise would have to learn from me.

An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace.

Women excel more in literary judgment than in literary production,--they are better critics than authors.

The critic's symbol should be the tumble-bug: he deposits his egg in somebody else's dung, otherwise he could not hatch it.

It is easy to criticize an author, but difficult to appreciate him.