A Quote by Craig Brown
The best critics do not worry about what the author might think. That would be like a detective worrying about what a suspect might think. Instead, they treat the reader as an intelligent friend, and describe the book as honestly, and as entertainingly, as possible.
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I think people might think, oh, I don't want to approach the big famous author because it's embarrassing, but then they think for two seconds about it and realize, this is, like, a toilet bowl reader.
It is said that Mahatma Gandhi, when asked about Western civilization, remarked, 'I think it would be a good idea.' That's how I feel about intelligent life on Earth, especially when I think about the question of what truly intelligent life might look like elsewhere in the universe.
When we advocate for violence against women to be eliminated on campuses, we say, 'Well, actually, it's not just on campuses we have to worry about.' We might have to worry about high schools. We might have to worry about police precincts and cars. We might have to worry about public housing.
Reading isn't about managing expectations. In certain ways, writing is. You're trying to send signals early in a book about what might be coming later, but I think worrying about the kind of chatter around a book is something I try and stay as far away from when I'm reading.
I think when we think about the judgment of someone who might want World War III, we might think about someone who might shut down a bridge because they don't like their friends.
A good friend of mine once told me that each morning when you wake up, think about winning the day. Don't worry about a week from now or a month from now - just think about one day at a time. If you are worried about the mountain in the distance, you might trip over the molehill right in front of you. Win the day!
As for worrying about what other people might think - forget it. They aren't concerned about yours. They're too busy worrying about what you and other people think of theirs.
When I'm writing, I am lost in my book. Except family and close friends, I don't care about what critics, publishers or readers might think.
Of all my films, people wrote to me most about this one... ...I had wanted to make The Idiot long before Rashomon. Since I was little I've liked Russian literature, but I find that I like Dostoevsky the best and had long thought that this book would make a wonderful film. He is still my favourite author, and he is the one - I still think - who writes most honestly about human existence.
We do share with my mother what I would refer to as an anxiety gene. And I think it is genetic, that I worry about everything. Not every day, I don't want to say it like that, but I do worry a lot about - what was the line I heard the other day, when I was saying to a girlfriend of mine that I worry? She says, "Yes, I spent my whole life worrying - and some of the things actually came true."
When we're about telling the best possible story, making the best possible book - we're thinking about the reader, rather than about our egos. And then we serve the story. Not the other way 'round.
I think that the good thing about working smaller and being a smaller company that doesn't have to make as much to make money back is that you don't have to worry about, well, critics like this and they'll tell people to buy it, but millions of people might say, 'Oh, well I'm not interested in that subject matter' and we're sunk.
Worrying about inflation now is like worrying about the measles when you might get the plague.
If only the people who worry about their liabilities would think about the riches they do possess, they would stop worrying.
I go out and do the best I can in each game, and I don't think about the fouls other players will commit or whether I might be injured. It only does you harm to worry about those things.
Publishing a book is a great thing, and I'm grateful, but it's also a horrible, exposing thing. Once you've published a book, you never write quite as freely again. You're aware, from that point onward, of the kinds of things critics might say about it. You're aware of the kinds of things your publishers might like and dislike about it. You're half-aware of marketing strategies - of all the stuff around the book. Whereas with your very first piece of fiction, if you're lucky, those things barely occur to you at all.
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