“What are the hallmarks of a competent writer of fiction? The first, it seems to me, is that he should be immensely interested in human beings, and have an eye sharp enough to see into them, and a hand clever enough to draw them as they are. The second is that he should be able to set them in imaginary situations which display the contents of their psyches effectively, and so carry his reader swiftly and pleasantly from point to point of what is called a good story.” ShouldFirstsHumansEnoughStoriesHandsSeemsEyeAbleHuman BeingsFictionSituationReaderDrawsCleverDisplayImaginaryCompetentGood StoryHallmarkPsych Author:H. L. Mencken
“To say that an author is a reader or a reader an author, to see a book as a human being or a human being a book, to describe the world as text or a text as the world, are ways of naming the readers craft.” WorldWayHumansBookHuman BeingsReaderCrafts Author:Alberto Manguel
“It's easy to sell good news like this, and the authors confidently rely on classic fallacious arguments. They argue by declaration, which is what makes the books so amusing. In matter-of-fact, authoritative tones, the authors tell us how plants and human beings exchange energy - or they describe what angels look like, whether or how they're sexed, how they communicate with human beings, and how they differ from ghosts. Readers might be expected to wonder, How do they know?” KnowsHumansLooksBookMatterFactsMightEnergyEasyHuman BeingsWonderAtheismReaderNewsAngelArgumentSellsPlantCommunicatePositive AtheismExpectedArguingGhostClassicToneRelyDeclarationGood NewsAmusingMatter Of Fact Author:Wendy Kaminer
“Through my fiction, I make mainstream readers see the new Americans as complex human beings, not as just The Other.” HumansHuman BeingsFictionReaderComplexesMainstream Author:Bharati Mukherjee
“[L]et my reader who is puzzled by my awkward explanations close his eyes for no more than two minutes, and see if he does not find himself suddenly not a compact human being at all, but only a consciousness on a sea of sound and touch . . .” IfsHumansDoeTwoEyeSoundHuman BeingsConsciousnessSeaMinutesReaderExplanationHis EyesAwkwardPuzzledCompact Book:The Magic of Shirley Jackson Source: The Magic of Shirley Jackson
“Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep the reader interested ...)” WritingFirstsHumansHardHuman BeingsFictionImpossibleReaderProtagonists Author:Charles Stross
“To hold the reader's attention, you have to bring the person who's reading the book inside the experience of the time: What was it like to have been alive then? What were these people like as human beings?” PeopleHumansPersonsHas BeensBookReadingHuman BeingsAttentionAliveReader Author:David McCullough
“The first draft is for YOU, the writer; the second and subsequent drafts are for the reader. Trying to do both things at once — figuring out what we want to say, while also fashioning it for another human being to read — is the cause of writer’s block.” WantTryingFirstsHumansCausesHuman BeingsReaderBlockWriter's Block Author:Karen Karbo
“[In the moment of reading writer and reader] are both briefly their best selves, or at least better selves. A flawed human being writes something and 60 years later a reader picks up the book and something in them rises to meet it.” WritingYearsHumansBookSelfMomentsReadingHuman BeingsReaderPicksFlawedBest Self Author:George Saunders
“Every reader of the Conversations with the God is invited to self-select, that is, to choose themselves, to be among those who commit to moving forward their own individual and personal evolution by embracing and demonstrating behaviors that serve to awaken the species to who and what human beings really are Individuations of Divinity, and how that may be made manifest in our experience.” HumansMayMadeSelfMovingIndividualHuman BeingsEvolutionReaderConversationBehaviorSpeciesCommitMoving ForwardDivinityManifestBeing RealInvitedSelectDemonstratingIndividuationPersonal Evolution Author:Neale Donald Walsch