Bad reviews Quote by Commonweal
![“At a conservative estimate, one million dollars will be spent by American readers for this book [For Whom the Bell Tolls]. They will get for their money 34 pages of permanent value. These 34 pages tell of a massacre happening in a little Spanish town in the early days of the Civil War...Mr…” quote by Commonweal](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/3cd/commonweal-147682_bad-reviews_at-a-conservative-estimate-one-million-d_1031377.jpg)
““At a conservative estimate, one million dollars will be spent by American readers for this book [For Whom the Bell Tolls]. They will get for their money 34 pages of permanent value. These 34 pages tell of a massacre happening in a little Spanish town in the early days of the Civil War...Mr. Hemingway: please publish the massacre scene separately, and then forget For Whom the Bell Tolls; please leave stories of the Spanish Civil War to Malraux...””
About This Quote
Only a small portion of a book offers lasting value; the rest is expendable.
In simple terms: A few pages hold true worth.
Key Takeaway
Focus on extracting core insights.
Themes
literature
value
editing
Mood
analytical
critical
Type
literary
philosophical
When to use this quote
- reading
- teaching
- publishing
- book reviews
Key Concepts
concise wisdom
literary criticism
Questions to Reflect On
- What makes a passage timeless?
- How to balance brevity and depth?
A Different Perspective
Reducing a work to a few pages may miss context.
![“[Leaves of Grass is] monstrous because it pretends to persuade the soul while it slights the intellect; because it pretends to gratify the feelings while it outrages the taste.” quote by Henry James](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/981/henry-james-417_bad-reviews_leaves-of-grass-is-monstrous-because-it_120303.jpg)
![“[Ulysses] appears to have been written by a perverted lunatic who has made a speciality of the literature of the latrine… I have no stomach for Ulysses… James Joyce is a writer of talent, but in Ulysses he has ruled out all the elementary decencies of life and dwells appreciatively on things that…” quote by Aramis](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/69c/aramis-186052_bad-reviews_ulysses-appears-to-have-been-written-by_210594.jpg)
