Christian Nestell Bovee Quotes

A book may be very amusing with numerous errors, or it may be very dull without a single absurdity.

It doesn't really matter what "genre" your book is. What matters is that it's a good book of its kind. Whatever that kind may be.

The best book of the year, Grobel's writing is quite marvelous. The Hustons reads vividly, just like one of John Huston's great films.

What makes a good book? Scholars and critics have been debating that question for decades. I like books that touch my head and my heart at the same time.

I had started to feel that somewhere in the second half of the 20th century, the idea of page-turning as a good thing had been lost. You were getting books that were the equivalent of absolutely beautifully prepared dishes of food that didn't taste like anything much.

A book may be compared to your neighbor: if it be good, it cannot last too long; if bad, you cannot get rid of it too early.

A text may be superbly written, exquisitely subtle, deeply meaningful, but still seem like a luxury extra, something we add to the already well-stocked store of our reading experience.

The whole purpose of books is that we read them, and if you find you can't, it might not be your inadequacy that's to blame. 'Good' books can be pretty awful sometimes.

People never read my books for the quality of the documentary value.

I always think of books as being like people. Even the dull ones are worthy of decent respect, but you don't have to seek them out and spend time with them.

There are only two kinds of books -- good books and the others. The good are winnowed from the bad through the democracy of time.

Only those works which are well-written will pass to posterity: the amount of knowledge, the uniqueness of the facts, even the novelty of the discoveries are no guarantees of immortality ... These things are exterior to a man but style is the man himself.

When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature.

Ideally, we should like to define a good book as one which 'permits, invites, or compels' good reading

A sure sign of a good book is that you like it more the older you get.

Good books are irrefutable, and bad books refute themselves.

It is a sure evidence of a good book if it pleases us more and more as we grow older.

Nine-tenths of all existing books are nonsense.

It is not all books that are as dull as their readers.

[Preface to second edition:] ... I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be.

Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

Homeliness is almost as great a merit in a book as in a house, if the reader would abide there. It is next to beauty, and a very high art.

When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge a book; it is good, and is the work of a master-hand.

There are good books which are only for adults. There are no good books which are only for children.

By the way, the Harry Potter series is literature, in spite of what some people might say. The way J.K. Rowling worked that world out is quite something.