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Failing Quotes

“coincident with the explosive growth of research, the art of writing science suffered a grave setback, and the stultifying convention descended that the best scientific prose should sound like a non-human author addressing a mechanical reader. ... We injure ourselves when we fail to make our discipline as clear and vibrant as we can to students - prospective scientists - and to the public who pay the taxes.”

Source: Boojums All the Way Through: Communicating Science in a Prosaic Age

“Do you solemnly swear never to conceal a vital clue from the reader? Do you promise to observe seemly moderation in the use of gangs, conspiracies, Super Criminals and Lunatics and utterly and forever to forswear Mysterious Poisons unknown to science? Will you honor the King's English? ... If you fail to keep your promise, may other writers steal your plots and your pages swarm with misprints.”

Ifs May Use Novel Forever Failing Mystery Reader Kings Honor Promise Pages Criminals Stealing Mysterious Poison Plot Conspiracy Swear Moderation Clue Gang Swarms Mystery Novels

Author:Dorothy L. Sayers

“I go out of my way, but rather by license than carelessness.... It is the inattentive reader who loses my subject, not I. Some word about it will always be found off in a corner, which will not fail to be sufficient, though it takes little room.”

Way Littles Reading Found Loses Rooms Failing Subjects Reader Corners My Way Sufficient License Carelessness Inattention

Book:Complete Essays

Source: Complete Essays

“The lead either forges an instant connection with the reader, or the package fails.”

Failing Reader Connections Instant Packages Instant Connection

Author:Robert Bly

“Fiction is always a utopian task, in that there's an ideal you hold in your head as you write which inevitably fails in the moment of creation, in the insufficiency of words to convey meaning, or in the way the work is completed in the reader's head.”

Way Writing Moments Fiction Failing Creation Reader Ideals Tasks Utopian Insufficiency

Author:Lauren Groff

“I would also hope that readers receive a larger understanding, or a different understanding, of what it means to be human, than they might have had before. We suffer from being quick to judge, quick to make excuses for ourselves and others, and I would like the reader to feel that we are all, more or less, in a similar state as we love and disappoint one another, and that we try, most of us, as best we can, and that to fail and succeed is what we do.”

Feels Trying Humans Mean Different States Might Suffering Understanding Failing Judging Reader Succeed Excuse Disappoint What It Means To Be Human Quick To Judge

Author:Elizabeth Strout

“The young readers I have interacted with carry old concerns repackaged in the skin of a new generation: puzzlement over continuous national moral failings, contradictions with the elders, nostalgia for a nonexistent Kenyan past.”

Past Young Moral Failing Generations Reader Concern Skins Nostalgia Contradiction Elders New Generation

Author:Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

“The biggest experiment there - and I was convinced for a really long time that it was going to fail horribly - had to do with this weird thing I do every now and then. Like everyone else, as a reader there are certain things that really rub me the wrong way in fiction - pet bugbears, let's call them.”

Way Long Certain Fiction Failing Reader Long Time Convinced Experiments Pet Now And Then Wrong Way Weird Things Really Long

Author:Roy Kesey