“Among those today who believe that modern poetry must do without rhyme or metre, there is an assumption that the alternative to free verse is a crash course in villanelles, sestinas and other such fixed forms. But most... are rare in English poetry. Few poets have written a villanelle worth reading, or indeed regret not having done so.” BelieveDoneTodayFormCoursesReadingWrittenModernPoetRegretAlternativesFixedAssumptionVersesCrashRhymeWorth ReadingFree VerseModern PoetryEnglish Poetry Author:James Fenton
“Some will read only old books, as if there were no valuable truths to be discovered in modern publications: others will only read new books, as if some valuable truths are not among the old. Some will not read a book because they know the author: others . . . would also read the man.” IfsKnowsMenBookReadingModernHe ManValuablePublicationNew BooksOld Books Author:Benjamin Disraeli
“The art of reading is to skip judiciously. Whole libraries may be skipped in these days, when we have the results of them in our modern culture without going over the ground again.” MayArtWholeCultureReadingResultsModernLibraryThese DaysSkipModern Culture Book:The Intellectual Life Source: The Intellectual Life
“The ideas of the classics, so far as living, are our commonplaces. It is the modern books that give us the latest and most profound conceptions. It seems to me rather a lazy makeshift to mumble over the familiar.” GivingBookIdeasSeemsReadingModernProfoundFamiliarLazyConceptionReading BooksCommonplace Author:Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“I am very interested in human-interest stories emerging from modern India. I get my inspiration and daily dose by reading the Hindustan Times.” HumansStoriesInspirationReadingInterestModernIndiaEmergingDoseModern India Author:Vikas Swarup
“Unlike modern military codes, ancient texts are almost never purposely misleading, purposely scrambled. ... indeed, literacy was so uncommon until classical times that the very writing of a message sufficed to keep it from almost everybody.” WritingReadingHistoryModernMilitaryMessagesAncientCodeLiteracyMisleadUncommon Author:E. J. W. Barber
“I began to think that the finest modern writer was the screen actor. This was in the spirit of the Fifties where a very antiliterary literature was emerging - Kenneth Patchen and others. I kind of believed what Nietzsche said, that nothing not written in your blood is worth reading; it's just more pollution of the airwaves.” ThinkingKindSaidSpiritReadingActorsLiteratureWrittenBloodModernScreensPollutionFinestEmergingWorth ReadingKenneth Author:Jack Nicholson
“The stories in Get In Trouble confirm once again that Kelly Link is a modern virtuoso of the form-playful and subversive required reading for anyone who loves short fiction.” StoriesFormReadingFictionTroubleModernLinksSubversiveShort LoveVirtuoso Author:Jeff VanderMeer
“I have trouble reading modern Hebrew. In the 1950s, I could read anything. I don't know how much experience you've had with contemporary Hebrew. It's quite difficult.” KnowsReadingDifficultKnow HowTroubleModernContemporaryHebrew Author:Noam Chomsky
“I spend so much time on the Internet...I feel like I'm a million pages into the worst book ever, and I'm never going to stop reading.” FeelsBookProblemTimeReadingMillionsModernWorstInternetComputerPagesSpendingReading BooksActualityModernisation Author:Aziz Ansari
“I'm referred to, I see, as 'the biggest banker in modern publishing'. Now there's a line that needed the celebrated Guardian proof-reading.” ReadingLinesModernNeededProofPublishingGuardianBankers Author:Terry Pratchett
“One of the things that's amazing about reading the private writing of these folks is that they enthusiastically describe things which we have now seen, and which are widely regarded as unappealing. They'll write, "It's going to be beautiful, we're going to have a town of 1,000 stone buildings that are all identical." And we as modern readers think, we've seen that; that's bad Soviet architecture or a public housing project. Nobody fantasizes about living there.” ThinkingWritingBeautifulReadingModernBuildingReaderProjectsStonesTownsFolksArchitectureSovietHousingIdenticalPublic Housing Author:Christine Jennings