“Reading asks that you bring your whole life experience and your ability to decode the written word and your creative imagination to the page and be a co-author with the writer, because the story is just squiggles on the page unless you have a reader.” WholeStoriesReadingAsksImaginationAbilityCreativeWrittenReaderPagesWhole LifeLife ExperienceWritten WordCreative Imagination Author:Katherine Paterson
“You asked if I thought my fiction had changed anything in the culture and the answer is no. Sure, there's been some scandal, but people are scandalized all the time; it's a way of life for them. It doesn't mean a thing. If you ask if I want my fiction to change anything in the culture, the answer is still no. What I want is to possess my readers while they are reading my book if I can, to possess them in ways that other writers don't. Then let them return, just as they were, to a world where everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt, and control them.” PeopleIfsWorldWayWantMeanStillsI CanBookCultureReadingAsksAnswersFictionChangedReturnReaderScandal Book:Conversations with Philip Roth Source: Conversations with Philip Roth
“If you discover a word in my book that you don't understand, ask your parents so they can look it up in the dictionary for you.” IfsLooksBookAgeReadingAsksParentReaderTreasureTalesDictionary Author:Gloria Estefan
“The reader may ask himself if this is not cruelty and injustice of a kind so terrible that it beggars the imagination, and whether these poor people would not fare far better if they were entrusted to the devils in Hell than they do at the hands of the devils of the New World who masquerade as Christians.” PeopleIfsWorldKindMayHandsChristianAsksImaginationPoorHellAtheismReaderTerribleDevilInjusticePositive AtheismCrueltyNew WorldPoor PeopleBeggarMasquerade Author:Bartolome de las Casas
“One of the best places for a shy person to meet people is in a coffee shop. If you are a reader, bring a book and read it there - that gives a guy something to ask you about. Same goes for sketching, writing, or any hobby you can take with you.” PeopleIfsGivingWritingPersonsBookGuyAsksReaderCoffeeShopsShyHobbiesBest PlaceCoffee ShopSketchingShy Person Author:Laurie Helgoe
“A novel is, hopefully, the starting point of a conversation, one in which the author engages readers and asks that they see things from a different point of view than they might otherwise.” DifferentMightAsksViewsNovelReaderConversationStartingPoint Of ViewHopefullyStarting PointDifferent Points Of View Author:Anne Fortier
“I believe that a work of art, like metaphors in language, can ask the most serious, difficult questions in a way which really makes the readers answer for themselves; that the work of art far more than an essay or a tract involves the reader, challenges him directly and brings him into the argument.” WayBelieveArtAsksLanguageI BelieveDifficultChallengesAnswersSeriousReaderArgumentMetaphorWorks Of ArtEssaysDifficult Questions Author:George Steiner
“The readers are very similar. The books they know, the questions they ask, the characters they like. That is similar.” KnowsBookCharacterAsksReader Author:Gabriel Ba
“When interviewers ask me who I'm sleeping with or if I don't like such-and-such or what is my sexuality, that's not beneficial to the world. They need to ask me about stuff that may help readers, like how my father abused my mother for many years. A lot of kids go through that and need to know what they should do.” IfsKnowsWorldNeedsShouldYearsMayHelpingKidsMotherAsksFatherStuffSleepReaderSexualityAsk MeBeneficialInterviewers Author:Missy Elliot
“There's nothing like having a sympathetic reader who asks the right questions, who understands what you're trying to achieve and only wants to make it better.” WantTryingAsksAchieveReaderSympatheticRight Questions Author:Donna Tartt
“I imagine you will always be pinched for money, for time, for a place to work. But I think you will do it. And believe me, it is not a new problem. You are in good company...Your touch is the uncommon touch; you will speak only to the thoughtful reader. And more times than once you will ask yourself whether such readers really exist at all and why you should go on projecting your words into silence like an old crazy actor playing the part of himself to an empty theater.” ThinkingShouldBelieveProblemActorsAsksSpeakSilenceCompanyImagineCrazyGoes OnReaderEmptyTheaterThoughtfulMore TimeBelieve In MeUncommonGood Company Author:Wallace Stegner
“By changing the way I experienced things, even just involving different details than in reality, I often felt I was betraying the past and playing an unfair game with the reader where he (of course) would ask himself "Did this really happen?"” WayDifferentRealityHappensPastCoursesAsksGamesFeltReaderDetailsBetrayUnfairInvolvingFair Game Author:Sasa Stanisic
“You might ask yourself why you want to surprise your readers in the first place. A surprise ending is sort of like a surprise party. Probably some people, somewhere, enjoy having friends and trusted colleagues lunge at them in the sudden blinding light of their own living room, but I don't think most of us do.” PeopleThinkingWantFirstsLightMightAsksEnjoyRoomsPartyReaderSurpriseTrustedColleaguesLiving RoomBlinding LightSurprise Party Book:The Writing Class Source: The Writing Class
“I like nudging readers into a slightly different perspective, but in a sly way - I want to be the writer who slips a stiletto in and out, to make so swift and clean a cut, it's not until a chapter ends that the reader looks down and sees she's bleeding and asks what happened.” WayWantLooksDifferentEndsAsksCuttingHappenedPerspectiveReaderDown AndCleanSlipsChaptersBleedingDifferent PerspectiveSlyStilettos Author:Kathryn Harrison
“There are some things fundamentally off about the stance of the book. And maybe that's okay; maybe every book is flawed, and great books, as flawed as they might be, articulate a moral argument that the reader then carries forward. The critique to this model is, of course, to ask: Should a book be ever so perfect that you come out of it with complete moral agreement that can be sustained?” ShouldBookMightCoursesAsksPerfectMoralReaderModelsArgumentOkayAgreementCarrieFlawedCritiqueStanceGreat Book Author:George Saunders
“The point of reading is to inhabit a consciousness that doesn't belong to the reader, immersing yourself in a life that's wholly realized. And a huge facet of our psychic and existential make-ups is the things we're not proud of, things we didn't ask to experience, the scenarios we flubbed.” ReadingAsksConsciousnessHugeReaderProudExistentialPsychicsScenariosFacetsImmersing Yourself Author:Joshua Mohr
“A book is not a tweet. A book is not a half-hour television show. A book requires for both reader and writer sustained discipline attention. It asks you to immerse yourself in something and really deeply feel it.” FeelsBookShowsAsksHoursAttentionHalfTelevisionReaderDisciplineTweetTelevision ShowsHalf HoursReally Deep Author:Ben H. Winters
“People always ask me about the role models that I'm providing for kids, and I say I can't be concerned with that. I'm not worrying about corrupting youth. I'm worrying about writing realistically and truthfully to affect the reader.” PeopleWritingI CanKidsAsksRolesWorryYouthReaderModelsConcernedAsk MeRole ModelsProvidingNot Worrying Author:Robert Cormier
“As a non-western artist, you have to ask yourself a question fairly early in your life: do I want to become a bridge maker, do I want my culture to be understood by the west? I have no intentions of doing such things. I'm fine being a little strange to a non-western audience. It doesn't bother me if my book doesn't change a generation of American readers.” IfsWantLittlesBookArtistCultureAsksAudienceGenerationsStrangeFineReaderUnderstoodIntentionWestWesternBridgesBotherMakers Author:Sarnath Banerjee
“I feel like the older I get, the truer it feels that I'm only going have an investment in a poem if it allows or forces me to bring something that's supremely me onto the page. I used to think that the speaker of a poem was talking to someone else, to some ideal reader or listener, but now I think that speakers - poets - are talking to themselves. The poem allows you to pose questions that you have you ask of yourself knowing that they are unanswerable.” IfsThinkingFeelsUsedAsksForceTalkingKnowingPoetReaderPagesIdealsInvestmentSpeakersListenersTalking To Someone Author:Tracy K. Smith
“For me it's more important that I outline all the facets of a controversial issue and let the reader make up his or her mind. I don't care if readers change their minds, but I would like readers to ask themselves why their opinion is what it is.” IfsMindImportantCareAsksOpinionIssuesReaderDon't CareI Don't CareControversialOutlinesFacetsControversial Issues Author:Jodi Picoult
“The old adage about giving a man a fish versus teaching him how to fish has been updated by a reader: Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries! Moreover, some politician who wants his vote will declare all these things to be among his 'basic rights.'” MenWantGivingHas BeensAsksRightsTeachingReaderPoliticianVoteFishesVersusAdagesSauceFriesFrench FriesBasic Rights Book:Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays Source: Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays