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Reader Quotes

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Reader Quotes

“We wanted to describe society from our left point of view. Per had written political books, but they'd only sold 300 copies. We realised that people read crime and through the stories we could show the reader that under the official image of welfare-state Sweden there was another layer of poverty, criminality and brutality.”

People Book States Stories Shows Wanted Political Left Views Poverty Written Crime Reader Point Of View Welfare Officials Copies Layers Realised Brutality Sweden Welfare State Criminality

Author:Maj Sjowall

“I think Miss Moore was right to cut "The Steeple-Jack" - the poem seems plainer and clearer in its shortened state but she has cut too much... The reader may feel like saying, "Let her do as she pleases with the poem; it's hers, isn't it?" No; it's much too good a poem for that, it long ago became everybody's, and we can protest just as we could if Donatello cut off David's left leg.”

Ifs Thinking Feels May Long States Seems Left Too Much Cutting Missing Reader Please Legs Protest Long Ago Steeples Donatello

Author:Randall Jarrell

“When modernist poetry, or what not so long ago passed for modernist poetry, can reach the stage where the following piece by Mr. Ezra Pound is seriously offered as a poem, there is some justification for the plain reader and orthodox critic who shrinks from anything that may be labelled 'modernist' either in terms of condemnation or approbation. Better he thinks, that ten authentic poets should be left for posterity to discover than one charlatan should be allowed to steal into the Temple of Fame.”

Thinking Should May Long Left Term Pieces Stage Poet Reader Fame Ten Critics Following Stealing Temples Pounds Orthodox Justification Long Ago Shrinks Posterity Condemnation Charlatans

Author:Laura Riding

“Truth, like beauty, varies its fashions, and is best recommended by different dresses to different minds; and he that recalls the attention of mankind to any part of learning which time has left behind it, may be truly said to advance the literatures of his own age. As the manners of nations vary, new topicks of persuasion become necessary, and new combinations of imagery are produced; and he that can accommodate himself to the reigning taste, may always have readers who perhaps would not have looked upon better performances.”

Source: The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752

“Proust has been dead since 1922, yet the annual appearance of his posthumous works has left him, to the reader, alive. Now there is nothing left to publish. Five years after his interment, Proust seems dead for the first time.”

Years Firsts Has Beens Seems Left Five Alive Reader First Time Appearance Five Years Publish Annuals Proust Posthumous

Author:Janet Flanner

“reading is a private act, private even from the person who wrote the book. Once the novel is out there, the author is beside the point. The reader and the book have their own relationship now, and should be left alone to work things out for themselves.”

Should Persons Book Reading Left Novel Reader Book Reading Left Alone

Book:This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

Source: This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage

“Your humble correspondent realizes that many readers are left-wing, anti-string-theory fighters. So they probably smoke marijuana and this is my modest attempt to help them.”

Helping Left Realizing Theory Reader Wings Humble Fighter Smoke Strings Marijuana Modest Left Wing String Theory

Author:Lubos Motl

“That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing. Could I have remembered, as some men do, what I read, I should have been able to call myself an educated man. But that power I have never possessed. Something is always left--something dim and inaccurate--but still something sufficient to preserve the taste for more. I am inclined to think that it is so with most readers.”

Source: Anthony Trollope: The Chronicles of Barsetshire & The Palliser Novels (Unabridged): The Warden + The Barchester Towers + Doctor Thorne + Framley Parsonage + The Small House at Allington + The Last Chronicle of Barset + Can You Forgive Her? + The Prime Minister + Eustace Diamonds...

“Oftentimes I deliberately put ambiguity into my books so that... the reader is left with an echo of: 'How much of this was from me?'”

Book Left Reader Echoes Ambiguity

Author:Mohsin Hamid

“But in all things whether we shall make only a due use of the liberties we have asked, is left entirely to the judicious reader to decide.”

Use Left Liberty Reader All Things Dues

Book:The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable

Source: The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable

“I believe with all my heart in delivering on my contract with my readers. They've got plenty of other things to do, so I had better give them a reason to turn every one of these 550 pages. This is my promise: I solemnly swear I'll make you laugh out loud at least once, cry a little in private, and burn whatever you left on the stove.”

“The writer, in order to proceed, is theoretically trying to predict where his complex skein of language and image has left his reader, who he has likely never met and who is actually thousands of readers.”

Trying Order Left Language Reader Mets Complexes

Author:George Saunders

“The term "bend sinister" means a heraldic bar or band drawn from the left side (and popularly, but incorrectly, supposed to denote bastardy). This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world. The title's drawback is that a solemn reader looking for "general ideas" or "human interest" (which is much the same thing) in a novel may be led to look for them in this one.”

World Humans Looks May Mean Ideas Turns Choices Left Sides Term Interest Novel Taken Broken Reader Band Mirrors Bars Titles Solemn Outlines Distortion Sinister Drawbacks Wrong Turn

Author:Vladimir Nabokov

“I tend to think that immortal souls, invisible sky daddies, and Santa Claus all belong in the same basket. The disposition of that basket is left as an exercise for the reader.”

Thinking Soul Left Sky Reader Exercise Invisible Immortal Disposition Daddy Santa Baskets Santa Claus Immortal Soul

Author:Charles Stross

“We shall not attempt to give the reader an idea of that tetrahedron nose-that horse-shoe mouth-that small left eye over-shadowed by a red bushy brow, while the right eye disappeared entirely under an enormous wart-of those straggling teeth with breaches here and there like the battlements of a fortress-of that horny lip, over which one of those teeth projected like the tusk of an elephant-of that forked chin-and, above all, of the expression diffused over the whole-that mixture of malice, astonishment, and melancholy. Let the reader, if he can, figure to himself this combination.”

Source: The Novels of Victor Hugo: Profusely Illustrated with Elegant Wood Engravings

“Names don't matter, CVs don't matter, previous publications don't matter at all, because, in a certain way, the ideal is for someone to come completely out of left field. And still, of course, it is hard to say no to a writer who matters a lot to you and who you know matters to your readers.”

Knows Way Stills Matter Hard Certain Courses Names Left Fields Reader Ideals Publication Who You Know Left Field

Author:Lorin Stein

“The reader's impression is one of a dream - the only thing that's left upon waking is the memory of a melody at the end of a concert.”

Ends Dream Left Memories Reader Impression Melody Concerts Waking

Author:Dumitru Tepeneag

“When you find it you become the secret addressee of a literary text and I felt that their reader had been left out of this experience of reading poetry or what the experience of poetry was.”

Reading Left Felt Secret Reader Left Out Reading Poetry

Author:Edward Hirsch

“People will say you should quit running if you're a slow runner. Or you should quit basketball if you can't dribble with your left hand. I don't agree with that. If you're not a very good reader at 14, nobody thinks you should stop reading.”

People Ifs Thinking Should Hands Running Reading Left Reader Basketball Agree Very Good Quitting Runners Left Hand Dribble

Author:Timothy Shriver