Elliot Perlman Quotes

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

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

I'm not expecting the American literary community to welcome me with open arms. To them I'm just some schmuck kid who wrote some book.

Winning the Whitbread was a very major thing for me. I'd always been well reviewed, but this made me widely read.

I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen.

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.

The first writers are first and the rest, in the long run, nowhere but in anthologies.

As far as fame, the everlasting fame thing. I used to think that was important for a writer... the desire to make your mark.

'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print. A book's a book, although there's nothing in 't.

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

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

All writers have the idea that they are famous.

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.

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

Dr. Johnson has said that the chief glory of a country arises from its authors. But then that is only as they are oracles of wisdom; unless they teach virtue, they are more worthy of a halter than of the laurel.

I kind of want to be seen as an American writer, not just a New York writer.

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.

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

I don't chase publishers. Publishers chase me.

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.

You can't really win as a Booker judge. If you choose the obvious names, the unit-shifters, you're accused of being timid and unimaginative; if you choose the unfamous, you're labelled willful and perverse.

I hope someday to see California literature become a part of mainstream American literature, and I hope to be part of that process.

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

Books that have become classics - books that have had their day and now get more praise than perusal - always remind me of retired colonels and majors and captains who, having reached the age limit, find themselves retired on half pay.