Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or fiction:
“O, popular applause! what heart of man
Is proof against thy sweet, seducing charms?”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)
“Americans will listen, but they do not care to read. War and Peace must wait for the leisure of retirement, which never really comes: meanwhile it helps to furnish the living room. Blockbusting fiction is bought as furniture. Unread, it maintains its value. Read, it looks like money wasted. Cunningly, Americans know that books contain a person, and they want the person, not the book.”
—Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)