Quotes by John Sutherland

“This shortlist, we believe, witnesses to the remarkable quality of the current state of fiction,”

“The strength of the years competition can be measured by the fact that three good books by previous Man Booker winners were finally not selected.”

“It did get very tight.”

“For a while it looked as if things were going to be irreconcilable. Getting it down to six was the hard graft.”

“There was sufficient quality for two distinguished lists. The strength of the years competition can be measured by the fact that three good books by previous Man Booker winners were finally not selected.”

“It is going to be a contest of giants,”

“This shortlist, we believe, witnesses to the remarkable quality of the current state of fiction. We look forward to the final round,”

“The selection of a shortlist, the judges felt, was an unusually difficult process this year. There was sufficient quality for two distinguished lists.”

“Technology will be key to economic development. These numbers and these trends are disturbing.”

“I find the facilities here great. The teachers Ive got to get used to their lingo and theyve got to get used to mine. We tend to speak slang and sometimes that causes trouble, but Im working on it.”

[Books are] vital to learning. Half the population dont go to football matches but that doesnt make football any less important.

The American critic Dale Peck, author of Hatchet Jobs (2004), argues that reviewing finds its true character in critical GBH such as Fischers [review of Martin Amiss Yellow Dog]. It represents a return to the prehistoric origins of reviewing in Zoilism - a kind of pelting of pretentious literature with dung, lest the writers get above themselves; it is to the novelist what the gown of humiliation was to the Roman politician - a salutary ordeal. Less grandly, bad reviews are fun, so long as you are not the author. There is, it must be admitted, a kind of furtive blood sport pleasure in seeing a novelist suffer. You read on. Whereas most of us stop reading at the first use of the word splendid or marvellous in a review.

For obvious reasons, the relationship between novelists, the reviewing establishment and critics in general is chronically, and often acutely, edgy. A kind of low-intensity warfare prevails, with outbreaks of savagery. It is partly an ownership issue. Who, other than its creator, is to say what a work of fiction means or is worth? It can take years to write a novel and only a few hours for a critic, or a reviewer rushing for a tight deadline, to trash it.