Book Cover Quotes

“Kneel or bleed.”
― Victoria Aveyard, Glass Sword

“If you cannot judge a book by its cover, surely we should not judge an author by one book alone?”
― E.A. Bucchianeri

“There is much to discover that's not on the back cover!”
― E.A. Bucchianeri

“Aspiring authors, get this through your head. Cover art serves one purpose, and one purpose only, to get potential customers interested long enough to pick up the book to read the back cover blurb. In the internet age that means the thumb nail image needs to be interesting enough to click on. That’s what covers are for.”
― Larry Correia

“She might not have read many books. But when she reads a book, she swallows the very words. If you open the books on her shelves, you will find that the front and back covers encase white pages.”
― Kamand Kojouri

“মলাটের চেহারা কতোটা চিত্তাকর্ষক করতে পারলে বই কতোখানি চিত্তাকর্ষক হতে পারে, সেই চিন্তায় মাথা ঘামাচ্ছি আমরা।
অবশ্য সারা পৃথিবী জুড়ে তো এখন মলাটেরই যুগ চলছে।
মানুষ তো শুধু জিনিসের ওপরেই বাহারের মলাট দিচ্ছে না, জীবনের ওপরেও মলাট দিচ্ছে। যার যা মূল্য ধার্য হচ্ছে সে ওই মলাটের বাহার দেখে।”
― Ashapurna Devi, আর এক আশাপূর্ণা

“When I was with him, I felt like a book worth reading all the way through again and again and again. Sure, he liked my cover. I wanted him to, but I wanted him to like everything else too. I imagined him buying the book, studying it, quoting it, memorizing his favorite parts. He’d keep it with him always, like a Bible, hold it sacred even when the cover fell off and the book became bent with age and use. Maybe, he’d be buried with it. That’s all I wanted.”
― Candice Raquel Lee, The Innocent: A Myth

“Don't judge a book by its cover. Judge it by its publisher.”
― Ljupka Cvetanova, The New Land

“There are a lot of conventions, a vocabulary and a set of practices and assumptions that underlie most professional book design. Since design is important to the eventual success of your book whether you attempt to do it yourself or hire it out, it pays to know something about those conventions and assumptions. After all, we don’t want anything getting in the way of your communication with your readers. You’ve got a message for them, a story to tell, or ideas to spread. That’s what’s important.”
― Joel Friedlander, The Self-Publisher's Ultimate Resource Guide

“First of all, please, please, don´t go publish until you are one hundred percent sure you are doing a great job, the best that you may deliver. For in this publishing media it´s easy to get it all wrong when you are just starting. Secondly, find a good editor, or at least a second opinion. You know, four eyes read better than two. You will regret later on for not having a good editor to go through your writing, or having a great artist to do the best cover for your book. Because if there is something I learned during these years in the publishing market it is to never ever underestimate the power of good editing. And my third piece will be to advice about a good image: the saying “never judge a book by its cover” was created by a lazy author who didn´t give much thought of what really works in the marketing of both fiction and nonfiction.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, How to Make a Book

“The “good stuff” the “stuff you want to talk about” or the stuff you “just need to know” is not in the beginning, or the end or in the middle. It’s everywhere. - The Affidavit of Niedria Dionne Kenny”
― Niedria Dionne Kenny

“Don’t judge a cover by the book. All know this quote is wrong; still, they judge.”
― Vikrmn: CA Vikram Verma, You By You

“How best to portray the story of Lydia---a woman who has mixed Japanese, Malaysian, and English heritage, and who is a vampire, a creature inherently half-demon, half-human---who is constantly trying to resist the temptation of her nature? I designed many versions of this cover; some depicted Lydia, while others focused on specific details from the story, like bite marks, or a pig whose blood she drinks in order to stave off her cravings for human blood. In the end, though, the most powerful visual was not one of Lydia herself, but of the novel's antagonist.
Because Lydia is an artist, it felt fitting to use a painting on the cover, but it needed to be a piece that spoke to the story on multiple levels. Caravaggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit felt just right; the sidelong glance peering back at the viewer, the lush basket filled with food that Lydia can never eat, not to mention Caravaggio's own less-than-pristine reputation, not dissimilar to our antagonist's. The final touch: a perfectly-placed crack in the canvas---or is it a bite mark?”
― Claire Kohda, Woman, Eating

“Just being near all these beautiful books reminds me of the feeling I get when I'm in front of a blank canvas holding a palette filled smears of colorful paint. I run my fingers across the smooth paper jackets of the spines, sinking into daydreams of the worlds and characters hidden between the covers, until I stop at Spin the Dawn, one of my absolute favorites, with one of the most gorgeous covers I've ever seen.”
― Julie Abe, The Charmed List

“There’s so much left unsaid as we dance under the stars. Yet, at the same time, the stark truth doesn’t need to be said at all. Together, we share a recognition of the past we had and the beauty in those all-too fleeting memories.”
― Julie Abe, The Charmed List

“There's no way you're going to get a quote from us to use on your book cover."

Metropolitan Police spokesperson”
― Banksy, Wall and Piece

“And he said...

...do not classify another unless you yourself wish to be classified along with them.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that a cover is a sort of translation, that is, an interpretation of my words in another language- a visual one. It represents the text, but it isn't part of it. It can't be too literal. It has to have its own take on the book.

Like a translation, a cover can be faithful to the book, or it can be misleading.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Clothing of Books: An Essay

“We don't live in a world in which a cover can reflect the sense and style of the book. Today more than ever the cover shoulders an additional weight. Its function is more commercial than aesthetic. It succeeds or fails in the market.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Clothing of Books: An Essay

“Everyone likes to judge a book cover. In the first place, it is easier to evaluate the cover than the content. Besides, it's fun. All one needs to do is look and react.”
― Jhumpa Lahiri, The Clothing of Books: An Essay