George Bernard Shaw Quotes

A lot of manuscripts that come in, you wonder by what outrageous fantasy the author believes that this should be pressed into print.

Just why I sent it to the publishers would be hard to say, but when I had finished it I felt that it was literature, because it is real and because it was well written. And I know that the world wants such things.

It's hard to judge literary merit.

For while agents and editors often misunderstand their market and sometimes reject good or even great works, they do prevent a vast quantity of truly execrable writing from being published.

Poorly written novels--no matter how pious and edifying the behavior of the characters--are not good in themselves and are therefore not really edifying.

Freedom of speech doesn't guarantee great literature.

A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.

Some books are well-received with critics; other books sell.

If you do a brilliant work and if the audience don't like it, what's the point.

I love to champion some of the hardworking actors where, it's been said to me, they don't bring money. But to me, they bring everything. They bring their wonderful selves.

You've just got to believe that people will see and appreciate the value in the music and the artistry that we bring when they hear it.

There's no objective reason anyone can point to that proves a horror story is innately inferior or that it's doomed to fail as a work of art because of it being horror. Anyone saying otherwise is being intellectually dishonest.

That's what people expect: They don't want to read a slight novel. People don't want to waste their time on anything less than 'great.'

If you're going to clutter up the world with more novels, you should do a little more than entertain people.

I've never read anything so badly written that got published. It made 'Twilight' look like 'War and Peace.'

I don't see why escapist literature shouldn't also be a work of art.

I hope I'm not just looked as a writer that is popular but as a writer of literary value.

I'm not saying I'm not bummed if a movie doesn't do well, but that isn't the final analysis of whether it's any good.

Is rule of thumb in writing game: if story requires many long descriptions of smells so vile that will give reader nausea, is not likely to find publisher.

Part of my gradual education of myself has been to think that there is a deep relationship between the nature of the creature and the worth of the art.

I don't think [price] reflects if the work is good or bad.A good artist shouldn't be nervous about that.

Literature ceases to be literature when it commits itself to moral uplift; it becomes moral philosophy or some such dull thing.

I hope there is something worthy in my writings and not merely the novelty of a black face associated with the power to rhyme that has attracted attention.

It is with noble sentiments that bad literature gets written.

Most works of art are, necessarily, bad...; one suffers through the many for the few.