Lynn Coady Quotes

I don't aspire at present to be king of the hill in American literature.

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.

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

Winning the second Pulitzer firmly places me in conversation with this culture.

I'm a writer. I never expected to be recognised on the street. I never expected to get that kind of coverage, good or bad. I never expected to sell as many books as I have.

It seemed impossible that a scrappy book like 'Goon Squad' could win an award like that. It's such an iconic honor. I think what the Pulitzer means to me is that I'll need to work very, very hard to try to live up to it.

I am, incidentally, the only writer to have received the Somerset Maugham award twice - the first time for my first novel, the second time for my second first novel.

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

Making the best-seller list is a big deal; it's like being nominated for an Oscar. Hitting No. 1 is like actually winning the award. It's very gratifying.

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.

When I got my very first phone call that I'd hit the 'New York Times' list, I had a small rush of 'I've made it!' But the next morning, it occurred to me I didn't know what it was, so I called my agent and asked what being a 'New York Times' bestselling author really meant. He informed me that I was now a thousand pound gorilla.

I've been very lucky with prizes. But the thing about prizes is that, when you talk about a prize-winning author, you can be talking about one that is well-regarded but doesn't sell any books.

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.

In Australia, the Man Booker is sometimes seen as something of a chicken raffle.

The Nobel Prize has given me, for the first time in my life, the feeling that my literature could be appreciated on an international level.

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

After a while, when the writer is mature, it doesn't really matter - not because of finances but because of reputation. It doesn't really matter how many awards you get.

It's a strange failure of the literary world that Updike never quite received his due. Despite winning two Pulitzers and two National Book Awards and countless other awards and honours, he was denied the Nobel.

To map the Governor General's Award is to map both the past and the future of Canadian literature, and to be nominated for my first book is wonderful.

You say that you hope I will be recognized as the best novelist of my generation. I want you to know now and know completely that that would mean to me absolutely nothing.

I haven't been the kind of writer about whom book-length academic studies have been written.

I'd only been in the business three or four years, but I told myself that someday I'd like to be Mort Janklow.

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

There can be no better prize for a writer than one awarded by an international book fair.