Even a bad review is still a review. It means someone cared enough to take the time to say: Hey, this sucks. Don’t bother. Buy a DVD instead...Yes, someone cared. And isn’t that what every writer dreams of?...So, how did I deal with bad reviews? How else? I cry. I get mad. I pretend not to care. Then I pour myself a glass of wine and call a friend to complain.

A bad review – or several— is, of course, one of the unavoidable pitfalls of being published.Some authors cry. Others get drunk. Most get mad. A few take it in stride, or at least, pretend to. After all, it’s our book someone just skewered...In the end even a bad review is still a review. It means someone cared enough to take the time to say: Hey, this sucks... Buy a DVD instead...So, how did I deal with bad reviews? How else? I cry. I get mad. I pretend not to care. Then I pour myself a glass of wine and call a friend to complain.

The world is only as small as we see it, my lady. Imagination knows no limits.

[Leaves of Grass is] monstrous because it pretends to persuade the soul while it slights the intellect; because it pretends to gratify the feelings while it outrages the taste.

[About John Updike's Rabbit Run] The author fails to convince us that his puppets are interesting in themselves, or that their plight has implications that transcend their narrow world.

On a book by Henry James: "Once you put it down, you simply can't pick it up.