Woody Allen on Books

"I took a course in speed reading, learning to read straight down the middle of the page, and I was able to go through War and Peace in 20 minutes. It's about Russia."

"I sit in a London pub with Willie Maugham. I am distressed, because my first novel, Proud Emetic, has been coolly received by the critics. Its one favorable notice, in the Times, was vitiated by the last sentence, which called the book "a miasma of asinine cliches unrivalled in Western letters." Maugham explains that while this quote can be interpreted many ways, it might be best not to use it in the print ads."

"Woody Allen later wrote in a letter: "My observation was that once a person actually completed a play or a novel, he was well on his way to getting it produced or published, as opposed to a vast majority of people who tell me their ambition is to write, but who strike out on the very first level and indeed never write the play or book. In the midst of the conversation, as I'm now trying to recall, I did say that 80 percent of success is showing up." - 1989 August 13, New York Times, On Language: The Elysian Fields by William Safire."