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March 28, 2024, 02:19:20 PM

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Don't Quote Me On That

Started by Serge, October 29, 2017, 07:27:11 PM

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Serge

In Paul Morley's 'Words And Music', a book with a quote on the cover from Brian Eno saying, "Paul Morley is the greatest thinker/writer/social critic/tv presenter since Plato/Keynes/Duchamp/Betjeman*" ("*delete where not applicable"), Morley reveals that Eno was happy to give him a quote for the cover of the book on the understanding that he wouldn't actually have to read it.

I've been wondering if this is the same method that Stephen King and, more recently, Stephen Fry, use, as they both seem to have quotes on the cover of a hell of a lot of books. King in particular - I can't believe he has enough to time to read as many books as he seems to and write two or three novels a year. Zadie Smith seems to have a habit of providing slightly annoying 'quirky' quotes for books (one of them read "I wish I'd written it meself", with 'myself' spelt like that, presumably in a failed attempt to sound more down to earth.)

I'm not sure there's anyone that I don't actually know whose opinion I'd value so highly that a quote from them would make me rush out and read a book, and even the more faceless ones attributed to certain newspapers rather than specific writers aren't going to make up my mind any more than a read of the blurb or the first page (in the case of a novel by an author I don't already know) will. And while we're on the subject, why do publishers think that filling the first four pages of books with quote after quote is a good idea? In the case of Ragnar Jonasson's novels, they go on for eight pages, for some reason.

Has anybody ever been swayed by a quote? Or are there any memorable ones?