Best reader & self Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Write about small, self-contained incidents that are still vivid in your memory. If you remember them, it's because they contain a larger truth that your readers will recognize in their own lives. Think small and you'll wind up finding the big themes in your family saga.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Stills Self Bigs Remember Memories Wind Reader Findings Our Family Theme Vivid Incidents Our Memories Saga Self Contained

Book:Writing about Your Life: A Journey Into the Past

Source: Writing about Your Life: A Journey Into the Past

“...But I don't think I'm the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don't care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution....And I don't want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I'm tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful.”

“The only real reason for self-referencing is the fun factor. It's fun for the writer, getting little peeks at what old characters might be up to. And it's fun for readers to spot a familiar face, or pick up on a made-up book title or something from an earlier story. I don't know that it does -- or even should -- contribute to the story in hand being any better than it would have been without it.”

Knows Should Littles Doe Has Beens Made Book Real Self Reason Character Stories Hands Might Faces Fun Reader Picks Familiar Factors Spots Titles Referencing Familiar Faces Book Titles

Author:Charles de Lint

“Nearly all the writing of our time is likely to disappear in a hundred years. Certainly most readers - and nearly all critics - feel that [Kurt] Vonnegut started to repeat himself, to grow increasingly self-indulgent and meandering, and to sometimes just blather in his later work. But his books up to "Slaughterhouse-Five" do possess a distinctiveness that will insure some kind of permanence, if only in the history of the 1960s and of science fiction.”

“There are probably seven persons, in all, who really like my work; and they are enough. I should write even if I were the only patient reader, for my aim is merely self-expression.”

Ifs Should Writing Persons Self Enough Expression Reader Aim Seven Patient Self Expression

Book:The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature

Source: The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature

“Try not to be too angry or disappointed with your fellow Americans. Most of them don't care about politics as much as the majority of my readers, and the education they have received about it from the government's public school system is nothing more than a septic tank full of warmed-over self-serving statist lies and leftist propaganda.”

Self Government Care School Lying Reader Fellows Angry Majority Don't Care Propaganda Serving Disappointed Public School Tanks Leftists School System Self Serving

Author:L. Neil Smith

“Not every article in every magazine or newspaper is meant to be a valentine card addressed to every reader's self-esteem.”

Self Self Esteem Reader Newspapers Esteem Cards Magazines Meant To Be Articles Valentine Valentine Card

Author:Rex Murphy

“I have a really good idea of who my readers are and always write with a sensitivity to my audience. I use the F word when necessary, but there are words I won't use, mainly because I don't like them. I don't write about body parts when I write about sex. It's not about the physiological, it's more important for teens to read about the emotional aspects. I do think there are times when self-censorship is important.”

Thinking Writing Important Ideas Self Use Body Sex Audience Emotional Reader Aspect Good Ideas Censorship Teens Sensitivity Physiological Self Censorship

Author:Ellen Hopkins

“In I Praise My Destroyer, Diane Ackerman demonstrates once again her love for the specific language that rises from the juncture of self and the natural world, and her skillful use of that language. Whether she turns her attention to the act of eating an apricot 'the color of shame and dawn,' or to 'the omnipotence of light,' or to grief when 'All the greens of summer have blown apart,' her linking of unique images, her energetic wit and whimsy, her compassionate investment in life, always bring new pleasures and perceptions to the reader.”

“I read The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and found it incredibly powerful writing. For me as a reader, it was less impactful as philosophy than as one writers ultimate confessional: an absolute horror story, where the self is the monster.”

Writing Humans Self Philosophy Stories Found Powerful Race Reader Horror Ultimate Absolutes Monsters Human Race Conspiracy Horror Stories

Author:Nic Pizzolatto

“By believing that only some of our students will ever develop a love of books and reading, we ignore those who do not fall into books and reading on their own. We renege on our responsibility to teach students how to become self-actualized readers. We are selling our students short by believing that reading is a talent and that lifelong reading behaviors cannot be taught.”

Believe Book Self Fall Reading Responsibility Teach Talent Students Taught Reader Behavior Selling Lifelong Books And Reading

Book:Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer's Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits

Source: Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer's Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits

“No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, dont confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.”

Ifs Writing Firsts May Self Reading Born Fiction Class Teach Reader Wide Urges Self Knowledge Fiction Writers Reading Fiction

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“Our time and attention is scarce. Art is not that important to us, no matter what we might like to believe... Our love of art is often quite temporary, dependent upon our moods, and our love of art is subservient to our demand for a positive self image. How we look at art should account for those imperfections and work around them. Keep in mind that books, like art museums, are not always geared to the desires of the reader. Maybe we think we are supposed to like tough books, but are we? Who says? Many writers (and art museums) produce for quite a small subsample of the... public.”

“My readers often say to me, 'If we lived next door to each other, we'd be best friends.' That is precisely what I wanted to say to smart, funny, self-effacing Ellen McCarthy after I finished reading The Real Thing. I loved every lesson laid out in a book that wouldn't dare to call itself a field guide to marriage but amounts to as much on every page. This is a deeply useful little book.”

Ifs Littles Book Real Self Wanted Reading Next Doors Fields Reader Amount Lessons Pages Smart Dare Finished Guides Real Things

Author:Kelly Corrigan

“A large part of academic community is unthinkingly self-involved, producing reams of sterile writing - often consuming unbelievable amounts of public funds - and serving as an instruction manual for how to chase away readers and ignore historical insights.”

Writing Self Community Reader Amount Involved Historical Insight Fund Serving Instruction Academic Unbelievable Consuming Manuals

Author:Gotz Aly

“Bloggers intent on self-expression which renders no service to readers don't get read.”

Self Expression Reader Self Expression Bloggers

Author:Lee Gutkind

“Do not tell me what to do, tell me what you do. Do not tell me what is good for me, tell me what is good for you. If, at the same time, you reveal the you in me, if you become a mirror to my inner self, then you have made a reader and a friend.”

Ifs Made Self Reader Mirrors Inner Self

Author:George A. Sheehan

“... the understatement, the self-ridicule, the delight in the foreignness of foreigners, the complete denial of any attempt to enlist the sympathies of his readers in the hardships he has capriciously invited.”

Self Reader Delight Denial Hardship Invited Ridicule Foreigners Understatement

Author:Evelyn Waugh

“The problem a lot of writers have is that they really, really enjoy people saying, "You're brilliant." They let their self-perception be dictated by reader response. But if you're going to let other people make you feel good, you're going to end up feeling bad when they say the opposite. You've got to be a cultural stoic. Then you won't be devastated by people who respond negatively. Of course, the downside is that it sort of stops you from being able to enjoy people liking your work.”

“When writers are self-conscious about themselves as writers they often keep a great distance from their characters, sounding as if they were writing encyclopedia entries instead of stories. Their hesitancy about physical and psychological intimacy can be a barrier to vital fiction. Conversely, a narration that makes readers hear the characters' heavy breathing and smell their emotional anguish diminishes distance. Readers feel so close to the characters that, for those magical moments, they become those characters.”

“Not every oak has to be gnarled, every detective hard-bitten. The adjective that exists solely as a decoration is a self-indulgence for the writer and an obstacle for the reader.”

Self Hard Reader Obstacles Indulgence Detectives Oaks Adjectives Decoration Self Indulgence

Book:On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“Ayn Rand held that art is a 're-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgements.' By its nature, therefore, a novel (like a statue or a symphony) does not require or tolerate an explanatory preface; it is a self-contained universe, aloof from commentary, beckoning the reader to enter, perceive, respond.”

Doe Art Self Reality Artist Values Universe Novel Creation Reader Art Is Perceive Judgement Tolerate Metaphysical Statues Symphony Commentary Aloof Self Contained Beckoning

Author:Leonard Peikoff

“The writer has a feeling and utters it from his true self. The reader reads it and is immediately infected and has exactly the same feeling. This is the whole secret of enchantment and fascination.”

Self Whole Feelings Secret Reader True Self Fascination Enchantment

Book:If You Want to Write

Source: If You Want to Write

“Thus Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Douglas and Mr. Joyce partly spoil their books for women readers by their display of self-conscious virility; and Mr. Hemingway, but much less violently, follows suit.”

Book Self Reader Conscious Suits Display Spoil Self Conscious Joyce

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)

“So all that is said of the wise man by Stoic or Oriental or modern essayist, describes to each reader his own idea, describes his unattained but attainable self.”

Men Said Ideas Self Wise Modern Reader Stoic Essayists

Book:Self-Reliance and Other Essays

Source: Self-Reliance and Other Essays

“The best headlines are those that appeal to the reader's self-interest, that is, headlines based on reader benefits. They offer readers something they want - and get from you.”

Want Self Interest Reader Offers Benefits Appeals Self Interest Headlines

Author:John Caples

“I tend to think that the onus is on the writer to engage the reader, that the reader should not be expected to need the writer, that the writer has to prove it. All that stuff might add up to a kind of fun in the work. I like things that are about interesting subjects, which sounds self-evident.”

Thinking Needs Should Kind Self Might Fun Stuff Sound Interesting Subjects Reader Prove Add Expected Evident Prove It

Author:Lorin Stein

“I grew up as a reader as well as a movie-lover, so many of the novelists I admired - and so many of the great filmmakers I loved - were self-taught.”

Wells Self Taught Grew Reader Lovers Grew Up Novelists Filmmaker Great Film Self Taught

Author:Curtis Hanson

“Agency over one's sexual self - and the articulation of that kind of agency - might seem transgressive to readers who don't expect it in a woman's text.”

Kind Self Seems Might Reader Agency Articulation

Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim

“There's something very self-conscious about a writer who's addressing his reader. Don't do that.”

Self Reader Conscious Self Conscious

Author:Ewan McGregor

“Of course, we [ with Edward Herman] have a purpose: namely, to encourage readers to undertake what might be called "a course in intellectual self-defense," and to suggest ways to proceed; in other words, to help people undermine the dedicated efforts to "manufacture consent" and to turn them into passive objects rather than agents who control their own fate.”

People Way Self Helping Might Purpose Turns Courses Effort Fate Objects Reader Intellectual Defense Agents Dedicated Passive Consent Self Defense

Author:Noam Chomsky

“[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.”

Writing Years Humans Book Self Moments Reading Human Beings Reader Picks Flawed Best 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.”

“I was really inspired by seeing self published zines and mini-comics: seeing someone else make work that was either really personal, or was just done entirely themselves. It really showed me what was possible for my own art, and I hope that my books will inspire readers in the same way.”

Way Art Book Self Done My Own Seeing Inspire Reader Inspired Zines

Author:Liz Prince

“But an experienced reader is also a self-aware and critical reader. I can't remember ever reading a story without judging it.”

I Can Self Stories Remember Reading Judging Reader Critical

Author:Hilary Mantel

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Reader Quotes