If a book sucks, stop reading it. — Stephen King

If a book sucks, stop reading it.

Author: Stephen King

Insight: Most of us were trained early to finish what we start. You see a book through to the end, even if it's boring you to tears, because abandonment feels like failure. But here's what that actually costs: hours of your limited life spent in the company of something that isn't working for you. And the strange part? Finishing a bad book doesn't make you smarter or more disciplined—it just makes you less likely to pick up another one. The permission to quit is surprisingly radical in a world obsessed with completion. Think about how you approach other things: you'd leave a bad movie, skip a song that doesn't land, close an app that frustrates you. Reading deserves the same grace. The guilt we attach to DNF-ing (Did Not Finish) comes from an era when books were scarce and precious. Now they're infinite, and your attention is what's actually precious. This doesn't mean giving up at the first hard passage—good books sometimes demand patience. It means noticing the difference between a difficult book that's engaging your mind and a mediocre one that's just taking up space. When you stop protecting the book and start protecting your time, something shifts. You read more. You enjoy what you're reading. And you develop actual taste instead of just obedience.

Source: On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft (ed. Simon and Schuster, 2000) - ISBN: 9780743211536