Ben Blatt > Quotes

“England and America are two countries divided by a common language. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW”
― Ben Blatt, Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing

“The result is 15 consensus “great” authors with a total bibliographyI of 167 fiction books, of which 37 books were considered “great” by virtue of being on multiple top-100 lists. Here, I’ve listed those 37 “great books.”
― Ben Blatt, Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing

“In his novel Chance, Joseph Conrad wrote, “Being a woman is a terribly difficult trade since it consists principally of dealings with men.”
― Ben Blatt, Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing

“As science fiction author Joe Haldeman has quipped, if there’s one thing the “write what you know” default has resulted in, it’s a glut of “mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery.” Let’s keep expanding the literary imagination.”
― Ben Blatt, Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing