Best reader & lines Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“All we need to do, reader or writer, from first line to final page, is be as open as a book, and be alive to the life in language - on all its levels.”

Needs Firsts Book Language Lines Levels Alive Reader Pages Finals

Author:Ali Smith

“There are all sorts of theories and ideas about what constitutes a good opening line. It's tricky thing, and tough to talk about because I don't think conceptually while I work on a first draft -- I just write. To get scientific about it is a little like trying to catch moonbeams in a jar. But there's one thing I'm sure about. An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.”

Thinking Knows Want Should Writing Trying Firsts Littles Ideas Stories Lines One Thing Theory Reader Tough Opening Invites Tricky Jars Moonbeams

Author:Stephen King

“Women are books, and men the readers be, Who sometimes in those books erratas see; Yet oft the reader's raptured with each line, Fair print and paper, fraught with sense divine; Tho' some, neglectful, seldom care to read, And faithful wives no more than bibles heed. Are women books? says Hodge, then would mine were An Almanack, to change her every year.”

Men Years Book Sometimes Care Women Lines Wife Mines Divine Reader Paper Fairs Faithful Print Heed Faithful Wife

Book:Poor Richard's Almanack

Source: Poor Richard's Almanack

“To understand Vers libre, one must abandon all desire to find in it the even rhythm of metrical feet. One must allow the lines to flow as they will when read aloud by an intelligent reader.”

Desire Lines Feet Reader Flow Intelligent Rhythm Abandon Libre

Author:Amy Lowell

“an Autobiography is the truest of all books; for while it inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shirkings of the truth, partial revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain straight truth, the remorseless truth is there, between the lines, where the author-cat is raking dust upon it which hides from the disinterested spectator neither it nor its smell... the result being that the reader knows the author in spite of his wily diligences.”

Knows Book Lines Results Reader Truth Is Cat Smell Instance Dust Spite Autobiography Extinction Spectators Diligence Truest Disinterested Between The Lines Remorseless

Book:The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

Source: The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

“The poet lives as long as his lines are imprinted on the minds of his readers.”

Mind Long Lines Poet Reader

Author:Alan Bold

“I'm 52 years old, which means I'm of an age where my reading habits are more or less set. I read plenty of stuff on line but I rely on pretty traditional sources. I'm a newspaper reader, whether in hand or on my iPad.”

Years Mean Hands Age Reading Stuff Lines Source Reader Habit Newspapers Traditional Plenty Rely Ipads Reading Habits

Author:Michael Wilbon

“I want to leave my readers with a sequence of ideas/phrases that makes them question something they'd taken for granted. Or that confuses them to the point that they laugh, but contains one or two phrases/lines that stick in their minds.”

Want Mind Two Ideas Lines Laughing Taken Reader Sticks Granted Phrases Sequence Taken For Granted

Author:Aaron Belz

“There are different types of readers. People draw lines at which three things intersect: the character, the author, and the reader.”

People Different Character Three Lines Type Reader Draws Three Things

Author:David Bezmozgis

“To what or whom does Lizzie Harris direct the imperative title of her startling first book, Stop Wanting? To the reader, the narrator, to desire itself, or to lack? This is a work of complexly, ambiguously layered narratives and identities. The opening poem asserts I want to say what happened / but am suspicious of stories. These lines become an ars poetica for the whole of this painful and exceptional collection in which the unspeakable is stubbornly confronted by a searing eloquence. This is a commanding debut.”

“The brand is lying about something, or at least misrepresenting it. When I read a bottle of shampoo or moisturizer or other beauty product, I always perceive a dark subtext. The words haunt me. It comes across as humorous to the reader/audience, but in fact the words really do make me a little bit queasy. Nothing is as easy or natural as consumer brands want us to think - no problem is as resolvable. Your hair will fall out, eventually. Yet we do have these brands, and we line our shelves with them. There's an inherent irony.”

“As a reader, I'm often put off by authors and story-lines without families or children and all of the angst and joy they bring with them.”

Children Stories Joy Lines Reader Angst

Author:C. J. Box

“Readers need to see themselves between the lines of the story.”

Needs Stories Lines Reader Between The Lines Contemporary Life

Author:Karen Kingsbury

“I hate set dissertations,--and above all things in the world, 'tis one of the silliest things in one of them, to darken your hypothesis by placing a number of tall, opake words, one before another, in a right line, betwixt your own and your readers conception.”

World Hate Language Lines Numbers Reader All Things I Hate Tall Conception Hypothesis Obscurity Dissertation

Book:The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Source: The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“In the end I'm still a writer. I'm still a journalist, and my first responsibility is to my readers. That's where I have to draw the line.”

Firsts Stills Ends Lines Responsibility Reader Draws Journalist

Author:Michael Pollan

“I am always interested in the ways of scoring the sound of the poem, especially a poem with long lines. Spaces within a line, double colons, slashes, are indications of pause, of breath, of urgency, they are not metrically exact as in a musical notation but they serve (I hope) to make the reader think about the sound of the poem - just as traffic symbols, when driving, make us almost unconsciously aware of a steep hill, an intersection, an icy bridge etc.”

Thinking Way Long Sound Lines Space Reader Breaths Musical Driving Symbols Hills Bridges Etc Traffic Pauses Urgency Indication Steep Icy Intersections Long Lines

Author:Adrienne Rich

“It's good for a writer to come from journalism because it gives you the tools. A journalist knows that he or she can lose the reader in six lines, so try to keep the attention of the reader. Also, you learn to research, and to conduct an interview - to extract from the person whatever you need from that person.”

Knows Needs Giving Trying Persons Loses Lines Attention Reader Six Research Tools Journalism Journalist Interviews

Author:Isabel Allende

“My wife is my first reader, my first line of defence I suppose. So she says, "Oh well, oh yes, it's all true." At the same time, I could have written much more about us, but I didn't want to go any further. I did cut things out. There are certain things that I wrote about her that are so gushing with praise and admiration that when I looked at those passages I realised they would be ridiculous to anybody else.”

Want Firsts Wells Would Be Certain Lines Cutting Wife Written Reader Praise My Wife Ridiculous Admiration Passages Defence Realised Oh Well

Author:Paul Auster

“Nobody likes to be found out, not even one who has made ruthless confession a part of his profession. Any autobiographer, therefore, at least between the lines, spars with his reader and potential judge.”

Made Found Lines Judging Reader Profession Likes Confession Ruthless Between The Lines

Book:Life History and the Historical Moment: Diverse Presentations

Source: Life History and the Historical Moment: Diverse Presentations

“I do realize that the reader needs some form of resolution. Sometimes I think of it almost like writing a musical score where things have to harmonize and certain lines have to come to a close.”

Thinking Needs Writing Sometimes Form Certain Realizing Lines Reader Musical Score Resolution

Author:Nicole Krauss

“Why should I give my Readers bad lines of my own when good ones of other People's are so plenty?”

People Giving Should Lines My Own Reader Plenty Should I

Book:Poor Richard's Almanack

Source: Poor Richard's Almanack

“Not everybody wants to call sin 'sin'! Some call it mischief. Some call it rebellion. And hardly anybody can agree where we should draw the line. ... Our courts are ... trying to define pornography, yet moral law is very specific to any reader of God's Word.”

Want Should Trying Law Lines Sin Moral Reader Draws Agree Court Rebellion Pornography Mischief Moral Law

Author:Paul Harvey

“I've done so many other projects where you're in a room with a reader and you're acting your lines out: 'We have to get out of here! Any minute the building will explode!' And then the reader says: "Yes...we have to get... out of here." So it's not easy to be in the moment in that kind of situation. Reading with the entire cast in the room for The Clone Wars makes the experience much more organic and I love that.”

Kind War Done Moments Reading Easy Lines Rooms Acting Situation Minutes Building Reader Projects Casts

Author:Jim Cummings

“I feel that if I establish the world or the premise from the first line, then I can get the reader to come with me where I want her to go.”

Ifs World Want Feels Firsts I Can Lines Reader Premises

Author:Laurie Foos

“I think there's a fine line between being so obtuse that you lose the reader completely, which is the intention for some writers, though it isn't mine. I work hard at grounding the world as much as possible in the world we do recognize.”

Thinking World Hard Loses Lines Mines Hard Work Fine Reader Intention Fine Lines Grounding

Author:Laurie Foos

“As soon as I start to write I'm very aware, I'm trying to be aware that a reader just might well pick up this poem, a stranger. So when I'm writing - and I think that this is important for all writers - I'm trying to be a writer and a reader back and forth. I write two lines or three lines. I will immediately stop and turn into a reader instead of a writer, and I'll read those lines as if I had never seen them before and as if I had never written them.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Trying Wells Two Important Might Turns Three Lines Written Reader Picks Stranger Back And Forth

Author:Billy Collins

“I'm very conscious of the fact that every line should have a cadence to it. It should contribute to the progress of the poem. And that the ending of the line is a way of turning the reader's attention back into the interior of the poem.”

Way Should Facts Lines Attention Progress Reader Conscious Should Have Interiors Cadence

Author:Billy Collins

“It's disingenous for me to say that I wasn't trying to write a moral novel. By its very nature as a novel about the Iraq War, Fobbit steps into the political conversation. There's no way to avoid that. I can appreciate that readers are probably going to line up on one side of the novel or the other. I hope they go to those polar extremes, actually.”

Way Writing Trying I Can War Political Sides Lines Moral Steps Novel Reader Conversation Appreciate Iraq Extremes Iraq War

Author:Dave Abrams

“I really want readers to put themselves into the shoes of each character. So the opening lines are an orienting technique: this is where you are, this is who you are. Go.”

Want Character Lines Reader Who You Are Shoes Technique Opening Where You Are

Author:Alissa Nutting

“Now, as a reader, you shouldn't feel the decisions the writer makes about this DNA, or it would be boring beyond belief. But, as a writer, you're struggling to make these decisions. What should the title be? What's the first line? The point of view? And the struggle with the decisions is because you're trying to figure out WHAT IS THE NOVEL, WHAT IS THE NOVEL?”

Feels Should Trying Firsts Would Be Belief Lines Decision Views Novel Struggle Figures Reader Boring Point Of View Titles Dna

Author:Mary Kay Zuravleff

“Joyce's writing in Dubliners contains some of the most unshowily beautiful sentences in the English language. I learned from him that if you write a good, clean line of English, you can get under a reader's skin. The reader won't even know why, but there you are. Didion, Berger, the many others I mentioned above, and many, many poets I haven't mentioned. Writers of this calibre are the moving targets the rest of us are always chasing.”

Ifs Knows Writing Beautiful Moving Language Lines Havens Poet Reader Skins Clean Sentences Target Chasing English Language Joyce

Author:Teju Cole

“I think if a writer is not endeavoring to expand and alter consciousness in himself and in his readers, he is not doing much of anything. It is precisely words, word lines, lines of words and images, and associations connected with these word and image lines in the brain, that keep you in present time, right where you are sitting now.”

Ifs Thinking Lines Brain Consciousness Reader Sitting Connected Where You Are Association Present Time

Author:William S. Burroughs

“There's a great line by Joss Whedon: "Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke." Even for a reader, there's only so much punishment they can take. You've got to give them a break here and there.”

Giving Lines Dark Break Reader Jokes Tough Punishment God Love Here And There Grim

Author:Declan Shalvey

“I was simply writing out our family stories in my online journal, scratching out what I want to remember, what I was wrestling out with God. Unbeknownst to me, two readers of the posts, both published authors, contacted their agent, Bill Jensen, within 24 hours of each other, encouraging him to drop me a line. Which he did.”

Want Writing Two Stories Remember Hours Lines Reader Bills Agents Posts Our Family Online Wrestling Journal

Author:Ann Voskamp

“Unbeknownst to me, two readers of the posts, both published authors, contacted their agent, Bill Jensen, within 24 hours of each other, encouraging him to drop me a line. Which he did. He shared his extensive publishing background with me, and prayerfully offered to work out a proposal and to see if God opened any publishing doors? I never get over the unexpected ways of God.”

Ifs Way Two Hours Lines Doors Reader Bills Work Out Backgrounds Agents Posts Unexpected Publishing Get Over Proposal

Author:Ann Voskamp

“When you talk about a reader being emotionally moved, a feeling of empathy, I think that comes out of that line-by-line respect for reader. That's actually where it all comes from.”

Thinking Feelings Lines Reader Empathy Moved

Author:George Saunders

“When I was a child, I used to go wandering - disused railway-lines, old barns, dry-stone walls, strangely Pre-Raphaelite copses - it's much more fun to wander than to be guided, and you could do it in those days with freedom and without paranoia. In similar fashion, I try to allow the reader room to wander, even to meander, to almost lose themselves and their grip of the narrative.”

Trying Children Used Fun Loses Lines Rooms Fashion Wall Reader Stones Wander Narrative Dry Paranoia Railway Barns Stone Walls

Author:Suhayl Saadi

“I read the 'Deadpool' series back in the '90s. I'm not, like, a huge comic book reader, per say, though. I'll check out 'Archie' when I'm in the grocery line, but that's about it.”

Book Lines Huge Reader Series Checks Comic Comic Book Groceries Book Readers

Author:Ryan Reynolds

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