Frank Deford Quotes

I write books that will make 10 or 12 hours disappear, and hopefully they'll resonate with you for a few days, where you'll remember the characters and the story. That suits me fine; I am happy with that.

At some level, I feel it is nice to know that a film of yours is doing well at the box office and has also got great reviews. That feels like success.

People keep saying, 'Oh, you're getting all these great reviews, that must make you really happy.' I guess it does, but mostly it's just a relief.

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.

It's nice to know that what you're doing is being read and enjoyed by a good deal of people.

I will say that walking down the street, getting on the subway, taking the elevator, if there's one or two people and they say, 'Great job, Mayor,' that is a real turn-on. I mean, anybody that wouldn't find that satisfying, rewarding, exciting, thrilling - I think they should see the doctor.

I remember how a man once got in touch with me to tell me that he was so engrossed in my book that he had to take a day off from work just so that he could finish reading it. Such kind of responses from my readers is extremely endearing, and it keeps me going.

I want my readers to feel, to think, sometimes to laugh. But most of all I want them to enjoy a good read.

Usually, as a fiction writer, you get e-mails saying, 'I liked your book,' or 'I didn't like it.' You don't get something saying, 'I'm really glad this is in the world.'

I think the greatest reward you get as a writer is finding that people who are reasonably receptive and intelligent have liked your book.

I will say overwhelmingly what means so much more to me than the opinion of one reviewer are the letters I get from fans who tell me how a particular book has changed their life.

When somebody's face-to-face with you saying, 'I may not have been here had I not read your book,' how do you respond to that? The first several times I traveled, it was almost too much. I was totally grateful, but emotionally, it was really hard.

I have been very pleased at the response we have got for 'SVSC.'

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

I'm glad that the audience and critics have liked my work.

Attending a book group is always a salutary experience for a writer. There's no guarantee that the people there will have enjoyed your book, and, as anyone who has taken part in a book group will know, half the fun is in ripping a book you haven't liked to shreds.

A book is a box brimming with incendiary material. The reader strikes the match.

Happiness today, I think, is for most people the satisfaction of the eternal suckling: to drink in more this, that, or the other.

Generally my favorite remarks always come from my readers. I've had people say my books made them laugh, or cry, or that it frightened them late at night.

Who hastens a glutton choakes him.

With the audience I write for, I want to make sure that the reader is eagerly turning every page. I want each of my books to be an absorbing reading experience, an authentic piece of literature. The worst thing that can happen is for a book to have a chilling effect on the reader, to have a kid pick it up and look at a bunch of footnotes and think, No, I'm not going to read this, it's too intimidating.

When I take up a book I have read before, I know what to expect; the satisfaction is not lessened by being anticipated. I shake hands with, and look our old tried and valued friend in the face,--compare notes and chat the hour away.

The association of books with their readers is unlike any other between objects and their users.

Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens.

When I read Jerome D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye" that was the first time I felt my mind blow open. I thought that book was speaking to me. I was 12 or 13 when I read that. I read everything on my mother's bookshelves.