On Reviewing Papers

"There is, of course, another lesson in it. Let no one try to make a living by becoming a reviewer [or to do too many peer reviews). The fatal ignorance of the text is not always the fruit of laziness or malice. It may be mere defeat by an intolerable burden. To live night and day with that hopeless mountain of new papers and books (mostly uncongenial) piling up on your desk (or computer), to be compelled to say something where you have nothing to say — indeed much is to be excused to one so enslaved. But of course to say that a thing is excusable is to confess that it needs excuse." CSL