Anthony Burgess

One thing I learned about my first novel was what all the reviewers thought of it, from Little Rock to Broken Hill, for I subscribed to a press-cutting agency, a thing I have not done since. I learned thus, what I have had no occasion to unlearn, that reviewers do not read books with much care, and that their profession is more given to stupidity and malice and literary ignorance even than the profession of novelist.