Ruth Rendell Quotes

There's always an attack on the sophomore novel from some quarters.

We should have won this one. I think it is a lost opportunity.

It's a terrible thing for a book, when you feel like you're supposed to like it.

I wasn't happy with my performance at the World Championships in Daegu. I had an unbelievable race in the heats, but misjudged the semi and finished last.

No one ever knows if a book is good until they read the book.

You see a lot of good ideas or well-written scripts that are bad ideas.

Critics who do the weekly recap, I find that kind of absurd. That's like reviewing chapters in a novel.

When a newspaper columnist wants to write about a novel, the rule is that you're supposed to have a 'hook,' an excuse, a timely reason to bring up the book in question.

I hated 'The Lovely Bones'. I thought her vision of Heaven was amazingly uninspired and very depressing. The book was just tedious.

During my freshman year of college, it became undeniably clear that I didn't want to be great again. I correlated greatness with misery.

I really enjoyed reading 'The Da Vinci Code,' but from a literary standpoint, the book did not live up to the hype.

If you get taken out after 20 minutes it's a big blow to you.

The Mathematician's Shiva is a brilliant and compelling family saga full of warmth, pathos, history, and humor, not to mention a cast of delightfully quirky characters, and a math lesson or two; all together, a winning equation! When Rojstaczer writes about mathematics, you'd think he was writing about poetry.

It's one thing to get beaten by a side who are a lot better than you, it's quite another to know you've thrown victory away in a game you should have won.

When you don't make the plays that you know you're capable of making, it's frustrating.

It's frustrating not to play well.

Football is still fun, but it's not so much fun when you're losing, especially when you prepare as hard as you can, you go out and have four targets, two catches and 10 yards.

I think I've underachieved quite heavily.

Sometimes when you miss out on points, it is a pity, it is a shame, because we tried to do everything in the game.

There is a sense of frustration because we are losing games that we know we are capable of winning.

I'm not really happy with my football career, but I can't complain about it, either.

I'd have thought my particular brand of quirkiness, combined with sharp intelligence and a fine voice, would have yielded more. But it hasn't. Yet!

I've been on teams that never made it to the playoffs. It wasn't fun playing meaningless football.

When I left college, nobody expected much of me - and nor did I.

I sometimes think there is nothing really to be said about a novel but 'read the book.' I have a jaundiced view of literary critics.