A Quote by Louis L'Amour

I do not believe writers should read reviews of their own books, and I do not. If one is not careful one is soon writing to please reviewers and not their audience or themselves.

Louis L'Amour

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Audience Believe Books Careful Own Please Read Reviewers Reviews Should Soon Themselves Writers Writing

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Louis L'Amour
American - Novelist
March 22, 1908 - June 10, 1988

I have learned not to read reviews. Period. And I hate reviewers. All of them, or at least all but two or three. Life is much simpler ignoring reviews and the nasty people who write them. Critics should find meaningful work.

John Grisham

I think all writers are mainly writing for themselves because I believe that most writers are writing based on a need to write. But at the same time, I feel that writers are, of course, writing for their readers, too.

Amy Bloom

Reviewers are certainly entitled to their own opinions. I've become buddies with enough writers and directors, and to be perfectly honest, the ones that have lasted a long time don't pay a lot of attention to the reviews.

Evan Daugherty

If you read reviews that you think by their very nature are not respectful of the actresses involved or not appreciating the work as it should be, I think you should write to reviewers or comment and say, "Are you kidding me?"

Romola Garai

I read everything aloud, novels as well as picture books. I believe the eye and ear are different listeners. So as writers, we have to please both.

Jane Yolen

It's always good to get good reviews. I read my reviews. There are a lot of writers who don't read their reviews at all. I read them; then I put them away because it's not good to engage with them too much.

Neel Mukherjee

People who write for reward by way of recognition or monetary gain don't know what they're doing. They're in the category of those who write; they are not writers. Writing is simply something you must do. It's rather like virtue in that it is its own reward. Writing is selfish and contradictory in its terms. First of all, you're writing for an audience of one, you must please the one person you're writing for. Yourself.

Harper Lee

I don't usually read my reviews. I've noticed older reviewers are much more bothered by the plot complications. Younger reviews don't seem to be bothered by the complications at all.

Heidi Julavits

Now, practically all reviewers have academic aspirations. The people from the universities are used to a captive audience, but the literary journalist has to please his audience.

V. S. Pritchett

When I was first writing, my little prayers were, 'Please, please, please. Let something be published someday.' Then it went to, 'Please, please, please. Let somebody read this.'

Judy Blume

In my experience, adults rarely bother reading the reviews of children's books and almost never read the books themselves - particularly if they don't have children.

Meg Rosoff

I don't read reviews. Just because that is something that's directly connected to my job. I'm doing this because I love it, not because I'm necessarily looking for approval or anything like that. To me, it seems that reading reviews - whether they're good ones or bad ones - can only sort of force the person to divorce themselves from the reality of what it is they do for a living. So I don't read reviews.

Kate Winslet

I don't read young adult or children's books, now that my grandchildren are beyond the age of my reading to them. I read reviews, and so I'm aware of what's out there. But I tend not to read the books.

Lois Lowry

When I'm writing, especially when I'm writing in first person, I don't think about the characterization, or how they are going to express themselves, I just express my own approach to these things. I think most writers can never divorce themselves from their private lives and personas; they are the ones that are writing. And the more they remove themselves from their own persona, the more, perhaps, mechanical the work becomes.

Richard Matheson

I don't read my own reviews and I haven't for probably 15 years. I read other people's reviews, though.

Kevin Bacon

Writers are egotists. All artists are. They can’t be altruists and get their work done. And writers love to whine about the Solitude of the Author’s Life, and lock themselves into cork-lined rooms or droop around in bars in order to whine better. But although most writing is done in solitude, I believe that it is done, like all the arts, for an audience. That is to say, with an audience. All the arts are performance arts, only some of them are sneakier about it than others.

Ursula K. Le Guin

A Quote by Louis L'Amour

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