Popular success is a palace built for a writer by publishers, journalists, admirers and professional reputation makers, in which a silent army of termites, rats, dry rot and death-watch beetles are tunnelling away, till, at the very moment of completion, it is ready to fall down. The one hope for a writer is that although his enemies are often unseen they are seldom unheard. He must listen for the death-watch, listen for the faint toc-toc, the critic's truth sharpened by envy, the embarrassed praise of a sincere friend, the silence of gifted contemporaries, the implications of the don in the manger, the visitor in the small hours. He must dismiss the builders and contractors, elude the fans with an assumed name and dark glasses, force his way off the moving staircase, subject every thing he writes to a supreme critical court. Would it amuse Horace or Milton or Swift or Leopardi? Could it be read to Flaubert? Would it be chosen by the Infallible Worm, by the discriminating palates of the dead?

We have aimed at popularity in the best sense of that term. The truly popular writer never sinks into the vulgar crowd. He rather raises the masses by bringing the highest subjects within their comprehension, making them, without a show of erudition, easily understood

There is a difference between being popular and being successful. Not every popular person is prosperous. What I feel should be their goal is to be prosperous in whatever they found themselves doing or wherever they found themselves. People should focus more on what they are working on and what they need to do to get to where they are going. Aspiring to be popular without any goal leads to disaster. Aspire to be prosperous and you will become popular

I think being popular is a tool instead of a purpose. One has to use a tool to express what he wants to express. Movies from the West, sometimes, are using this as a purpose, for a high market value. Their movies are made to be trendy, so that they could attract a great number of people. And in turn, they will make money that way. This is a universal feature in the industry. But for me I do not feel that it is enough if you just want to make something so that it will be popular. I have to express what I want to say. I probably would refuse to make such a film. To cast a movie, I have to find myself, to express what I want to say. Being popular, for me, is a process to make more and more people accept your ideas. For the movies I make, I try my best to make them popular, to make the audience accept it naturally. This is important. But I do not mean the other extreme, to only express what you want to say and neglect the public. This could end up as something just cherished by the artist. I think we are part of the mass, not higher than other people. I do not think possessing the quality of being popular is something lose face over. It is a style. It would work for the movies if and only if I am able to express what I want to say, and use popularity as a tool.

Prescription for popular success: do something strange. Make a habit of your weird.

If you have a success, you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work.

Being popular comes when you have everything. But to be liked, it means that you must be treating people with respect and you must be showing kindness toward them.

A popular author is one who writes what the people think. Genius invites them to think something else.

Let the author beware of popularity, otherwise he will be defeated by success. (p144)

We live in the civilization of the spectacle and the intellectuals and writers who are the most popular are almost never popular because of the originality of their ideas or the beauty of their creations, or, in any event, not just for intellectual, artistic, or literary reasons. They are popular above all else for their histrionic ability, the way in which they project their public image, their exhibitionism, their rudeness, their insolence, all that farcical and noisy dimension of public life that passes itself off as rebellion (but which, in fact, masks a complete conformism).

Political success is the ability, when the inevitable occurs, to get credit for it.

My novels are what is known as popular and sell very well, but I am not a critic’s favourite, indeed I am generally dismissed with a sneer as a bestseller and not reviewed at all.

A success is anyone who is realizing a worthy predetermined ideal, because that’s what he or she decided to do …

What point was there in pursuing an ever-elusive popularity?