Literary Merit Quotes

• The book trade invented literary prizes to stimulate sales, not to reward merit.

  Michael Moorcock

  Book, Rewards, Trade

  56 Copy quote

• Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Motivational, Time

  1603-4 Iago to Cassio. Othello, act 2, sc.3, l.262-4.

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• There is no test of literary merit except survival, which is itself an index to majority opinion.

  George Orwell

  Survival, Majority, Tests

  George Orwell, Keith Gessen (2009). “All Art Is Propaganda: Critical Essays”, p.320, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• A man of letters, merely by reading a phrase, can estimate exactly the literary merit of its author.

  Marcel Proust

  Reading, Men, Phrases

  Marcel Proust (2016). “Swann's Way”, p.326, Marcel Proust

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• That the question of likability even exists in literary conversations is odd. It implies that we are engaging in a courtship. When characters are unlikable, they don’t meet our mutable, varying standards. Certainly we can find kinship in fiction, but literary merit shouldn’t be dictated by whether we want to be friends or lovers with those about whom we read.

  Roxane Gay

  Character, Fiction, Want

  4 Copy quote

• ...book-buyers aren't attracted, by and large, by the literary merits of a novel: book-buyers want a good story...something that will first fascinate them, then pull them in and keep them turning the pages.

  Stephen King

  Book, Stories, Want

  4 Copy quote

• A critical assumption is sometimes made that [Grisham, Clancey, Crichton & myself] have access to some mystical vulgate that other (and often better) writers cannot find or will not deign to use. I doubt if this is true. Nor do I believe the contention of some popular novelists... that thier success is based on literary merit -- that the public understands true greatness in ways the tight-a**ed, consumed-by-jealousy literary establishment cannot. This idea is ridiculous, a product of vanity and insecurity.

  Stephen King

  Believe, Greatness, Ideas

  4 Copy quote

• Nathaniel Philbrick's 'In the Heart of the Sea' has rightfully taken its place as a classic for its literary merits. It has a special place in the cannibalism canon as well.

  Mitchell Zuckoff

  Taken, Heart, Sea

  7 Copy quote

• It's hard to judge literary merit.

  Henry Rollins

  Judging, Merit, Hard

  4 Copy quote