A Quote by Thomas Merton

A bad book about the love of God remains a bad book. — © Thomas Merton
A bad book about the love of God remains a bad book.
Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.
As to the book called the bible, it is blasphemy to call it the Word of God. It is a book of lies and contradictions and a history of bad times and bad men.
A great book is a homing device For navigating paradise. A good book somehow makes you care About the comfort of a chair. A bad book owes to many trees A forest of apologies.
A travel book is a book that puts you in the shoes of the traveler, and it's usually a book about having a very bad time, having a miserable time, even better. You don't want to read a book about someone having a great time in the South of France, eating and drinking and falling in love. What you want to read is a book about a guy going through the jungle, going through the arctic snow, having a terrible time trying to cross the Sahara, and solving problems as they go.
Only bad books have good endings. If a book is any good, it's ending is always bad - because you don't want the book to end.
When I'm writing, I'm thinking, "Well, this might be a book that I'll always be happy with, and certainly readers will be happy with." But another part of me knows that when I'm past the stage of writing, the book is gonna have good things about it, bad things about it - probably more bad than good. I just know that. That's who I am.
A travel book is a book that puts you in the shoes of the traveler, and it's usually a book about having a very bad time; having a miserable time, even better.
There's no such thing as a good book or a bad book. There's a book that matters to a reader.
But my body was telling its story. I have read a lot of stuff about cancer. I needed this book. I wish I'd had this book when I had cancer. I wanted someone to be talking to me about "fart floors." I wanted somebody telling me what it was like to have a colostomy bag. I felt so alone. And if you're a person who's been traumatized by past abuse, it's so potentially re-traumatizing. You slip right into "oh my god, this is the only person this has happened to before" mentality: "I'm especially bad and I have especially bad cancer..."
A novel with a bad middle is a bad book. A bad ending is something I've just gotten in the habit of forgiving.
Life is like a book. There are good chapters, and there are bad chapters. But when you get to a bad chapter, you don’t stop reading the book! If you do… then you never get to find out what happens next!
If you want to write about a person who isn't nice, people say, "This is a bad book. It's about somebody I couldn't stand." But that's not the point. You don't have to like a character to like a book. Most of the time, people would misjudge and say, "I didn't like the book." No, you didn't like the character. That doesn't make it any less interesting of a book. In fact, to me, it makes it more interesting.
When a writer declares that his first book is his best, that is bad. I progress successively from book to book.
Everyone has bad days, and when you're having a bad day, you think, 'Here I am being singled out by a hostile, malicious universe that is picking exclusively on me.' And then you read a book about bad days and realize they happen to everyone, not just tormented, persecuted you.
If a book really wants the patronage of a great name, it is a bad book; and if it be a good book, it wants it not.
I'd say that about 82 percent of what I write is bad, but don't go by me; I'm as bad a judge as I am a writer. Look, if it were all good, you'd be paying twice as much for this book.
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