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Reader Quotes

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Reader Quotes

“I do have to earn a living, so I'm conscious of probable reactions from readers, but the most important one is still the awareness that if I'm not enjoying a story, the reader won't either.”

Ifs Stills Important Stories Enjoy Awareness Reader Conscious Reactions

Author:Thomas Perry

“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

“The librarian of today, and it will be true still more of the librarians of tomorrow, are not fiery dragons interposed between the people and the books. They are useful public servants, who manage libraries in the interest of the public . . . Many still think that a great reader, or a writer of books, will make an excellent librarian. This is pure fallacy.”

People Thinking Stills Book Today Interest Reader Tomorrow Pure Library Being True Manage Excellent Servant Dragons Librarian Fallacy Fiery Public Servants

Author:William Osler

“At some point, every science fiction and fantasy story must challenge the reader's experience and learning. That's much of the reason why the genre is so open to experimentation and innovation that other genres reject--strangeness is our bread and butter. Spread it thick or slice it thin, it's still our staff of life.”

Source: The Writer's Digest Guide to Science Fiction & Fantasy

“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.”

People Ifs World Way Want Mean Stills I Can Book Culture Reading Asks Answers Fiction Changed Return Reader Scandal

Book:Conversations with Philip Roth

Source: Conversations with Philip Roth

“Throughout the 1960s and 1970s devoted Beckett readers greeted each successively shorter volume from the master with a mixture of awe and apprehensiveness; it was like watching a great mathematician wielding an infinitesimal calculus, his equations approaching nearer and still nearer to the null point.”

Stills Masters Reader Mathematics Math Mathematical Awe Devoted Volume Mathematician Equations Mixtures 1960s Calculus Beckett Null

Author:John Banville

“The problem for cookery-bookery writers like me is to understand the extent of our readers' experience. I hope have solved that riddle in my books by simply telling everything. The experienced cook will know to skip through the verbiage, but the explanations will be there for those who still need them.”

Knows Needs Stills Book Problem Reader Cooking Like Me Cooks Explanation Riddle Skip Cookery

Author:Julia Child

“It is easier for the reader to judge, by a thousand times, than for the writer to invent. The writer must summon his Idea out of nowhere, and his characters out of nothing, and catch words as they fly, and nail them to the page. The reader has something to go by and somewhere to start from, given to him freely and with great generosity by the writer. And still the reader feels free to find fault.”

Feels Stills Book Ideas Character Reading Given Judging Reader Easier Thousand Pages Faults Generosity Nails Book Reading

Author:Fay Weldon

“By the age of three ... I was already an addicted reader. I still crave daily immersion in experience other than my own; (it needn't be more pleasant, exciting or illuminating -- merely other) and I still fall into books as though into catalepsy.”

Stills Book Age Fall Three My Own Reader Exciting Pleasant Crave Illuminating Immersion

Author:Brigid Brophy

“A poem's life and death dependeth still Not on the poet's wits, but reader's will.”

Stills Poet Reader Wit Life And Death

Author:Alexander Brome

“When I was a kid, I loved having a book in my hand. I still do. I wasn't a fast reader, but I was a steady reader. I read all of The Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and Cherry Ames books.”

Stills Book Hands Kids Reader Steady Twins Cherries Nancy Nancy Drew

Author:Rhea Perlman

“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...

“I was a voracious reader and I could never understand why comics were of any less merit or importance than any other way of writing. I think the thing that keeps me with comics is there's still so much to be done. There's still this huge unplowed field, this huge unexplored wilderness, and as long as I can keep doing new things and coming up with new things, I will.”

Thinking Way Writing Long Stills I Can Done Fields Huge Reader Importance Merit Wilderness New Things Unexplored

Author:Neil Gaiman

“Limited points of view let the writer dispense - and the reader gather - information from various corners of the story. It all becomes a kind of dance, with the writer guiding the reader through the various twists and turns. The challenge is keeping readers in step, while still managing to surprise.”

Kind Stills Stories Turns Challenges Views Steps Information Reader Surprise Various Corners Point Of View Twists Twists And Turns

Author:Jonathan Evison

“When you wrote it didn't matter if hysteria sometimes came up in your face and voice (unless, of course, you let it find its way into your "literary voice") because writing was done in merciful privacy and silence. Even if you were partly out of your mind it might turn out to be all right: you could try for control even harder than Blanche Dubois was said to have tried, and with luck you could still bring off a sense of order and sanity on the page for the reader. Reading, after all, was a thing done in privacy and silence too.”

Source: Young Hearts Crying

“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 not a psychological novelist, and I try very hard not to allow the reader to see the plight or circumstances of the characters as individual psychological plights. That's my preference; still, a lot of people do read my novels as psychological studies, and they're right to read them that way too, if that's what they mean to them.”

People Ifs Way Trying Mean Stills Hard Character Individual Novel Study Reader Circumstances Psychological Novelists Preference Plight

Author:Alix Kates Shulman

“The writer is driven by his conviction that some truths aren't arrived at so easily, that life is still full of mystery, that it might be better for you, Dear Reader, if you went back to the Living section of your newspaper because this is the dying section and you don't really want to be here.”

Ifs Want Stills Might Life Is Mystery Dying Reader Dear Conviction Driven Newspapers Sections

Author:Don DeLillo

“The best critics leave the reader curious to pursue something further, but still to let the reader have his or her own honest, unique opinion.”

Stills Opinion Honest Reader Unique Critics Pursue Curious

Author:Michael Hersch

“When we look at a good deal of serious modern fiction, and particularly Southern fiction, we find this quality about it that is generally described, in a pejorative sense, as grotesque. Of course, I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.... Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.”

Writing Looks Stills Able Courses Found Deals Fiction Quality Cases Modern Serious Reader South Realistic Southern Freak Grotesque

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“I speak as an unregenerate reader, one who still believes that language and not technology is the true evolutionary miracle. I have not yet given up on the idea that the experience of literature offers a kind of wisdom that cannot be discovered elsewhere; that there is profundity in the verbal encounter itself, never mind what further profundities that author has to offer; and that for a host of reasons the bound book is the ideal vehicle for the written word.”

Source: The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age

“A word, and all the infinite fluctuations it may possess. Like that moment when you know you have something to say, and you know you're speaking, even, but you still have no idea how you will say it. Or the moment when, as a reader, you're reading, and you are understanding what you are reading, but still have utterly no idea what will come next for you, what precisely the author wants to say. For me, that is the ultimate level of literary depth, of literary density.”

Knows Want May Stills Ideas Moments Reading Next Understanding Levels Reader Ultimate Infinite Depth No Idea That Moment Density Fluctuation

Author:Sergio Chejfec

“To keep the readers interested, and coming back, and to keep coming up with new and exciting ways to present stories and to present the character in a reflection of the times, is an absolutely incredible accomplishment. Hats off to all these people who have done such incredible creative work and still do every week.”

People Way Stills Done Character Stories Creative Week Reader Reflection Exciting Incredibles Accomplishment Hats Coming Back Creative Work Hats Off

Author:Michael Uslan

“I don't revise a lot when writing short stories. As far as the novel, I definitely thought more about plot. Honestly, I'm still pretty confused about what "plot" means. I've been reading some of my Goodreads reviews and one reader noted that the The Last Days of California "reads like a short story stretched to the breaking point, padded and brought into novel range..." I don't know what people want, really.”

“I don't think we need a critic to negotiate with the audience. People say, "Who are you writing for?" I'm writing for myself but my audience is anybody who knows how to read. I think a story should engage anybody who knows how to read. And I hope that my stories do, maybe on a different level for more sophisticated readers than, say, a high school kid, but still a story has got to grab you. That's why we read it.”

People Thinking Knows Needs Should Writing Stills Different Stories Kids School Levels Audience Know How Reader High School Critics Sophisticated Different Levels

Author:T.C. Boyle

“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

“I hope readers will consider, especially in this age of the World Wide Web, that as miraculous as it is, we still need to be in the same room with all five senses if we are to empathize with each other.”

Ifs World Needs Stills Age Rooms Five Reader Wide Senses Miraculous Five Senses World Wide Web

Author:Gloria Steinem

“I was, not an altar boy, but a reader of the Epistle, and I walked in on a nun and a priest furiously French kissing when I was in seventh grade. I walked in, saw it, and went, "No way," backed out, composed myself, and went back in, and it was still going on. And the experience of seeing that was actually very deep.”

Way Stills Boys Saws Seeing Reader Kissing Grades Priests Altars Very Deep Nun Seventh Grade French Kiss

Author:George Saunders

“Readers forget that one can critique yet still admire.”

Stills Forget Reader Admire Critique

Author:Bell Hooks

“Of asking nothing of the reader - but offering a still, quiet oasis in the cybersphere to go vertical with God. An island of stillness to know that He is God.”

Knows Stills Reader Quiet Asking Islands Stillness Offering Oasis Vertical

Author:Ann Voskamp

“One of the keys is, and it may sound funny, talking about characters with super powers, but one of the keys is to make your characters as realistic and believable as possible. Even if they have super powers, you say to yourself, "Well, if somebody had a super power like this, what would his life be like? Wouldn't he still maybe have to go to the dentist or wouldn't he have to worry about making a living? What about his love life?" You've got to make characters that your reader can believe exists or might exist.”

Ifs Believe Wells May Stills Character Might Life Is Sound Talking Worry Keys Reader Love Life Realistic His Love Life Is Like Dentist Believable Making A Living Super Power

Author:Stan Lee

“I was always a slow reader, from the very beginning. I remember in first grade our teacher divided us into groups, and I was definitely in the slow group. She didn't call it that, but everybody in the class knew. But I still loved reading. Being a slow reader affected my grades in school, but it didn't affect my love for reading. I still loved going to the library, and I still loved reading books.”

Firsts Stills Book School Remember Reading Class Teacher Groups Reader Library Grades Affected Divided Reading Books Grades In School

Author:Gene Luen Yang

“You need to have a reader's sympathy in order to accomplish anything. It's like at a reading, I find it's better to read something funny than to read something tragic. It just goes over better because you have a finite amount of time with somebody. Of course, in a book, you have a lot of time. But you still do want to make a certain impression right when you begin.”

Want Needs Stills Book Certain Order Courses Reading Reader Amount Accomplish Impression Tragic Finite

Author:Jonathan Safran Foer

“I'm still not a great reader, but my wife is and my daughters are, and I envy them. I think I got into a bad habit of trying to do something all the time, instead of trying to sit down and take my time a little bit.”

Thinking Trying Littles Stills Mother Bits Sports Wife Reader Habit Little Bit Daughter Down And My Wife Envy My Time My Daughter Bad Habits

Author:Mike Krzyzewski