Home / Topics / Reader Quotes

Reader Quotes

Browse 3935 quotes about Reader.

Reader Quotes

“The Novelist As Teacher”: “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past – with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.”

Ifs Firsts Long Would Be Past Night Acting Teach Novel Teacher Reader Satisfied Novelists Imperfection Behalf Savagery Long Nights

Book:Things Fall Apart: Authoritative Text, Contexts and Criticism

Source: Things Fall Apart: Authoritative Text, Contexts and Criticism

“Familiar life, tending to sordidness, had been succeeded by remote life, generally idealized; historical detail had been brought in to teach readers who were being entertained.”

Teach Reader Historical Details Familiar

Author:Carl Clinton Van Doren

“I must suppose that reading wonderful writers may, inadvertently, teach an avid reader a great deal -- not only about life and other matters, but about how to write. Therefore doubtless I have benefited from frequent immersions in the glowing genius of others. It would be nice to think so. (I do actually think so). But to improve my skills will never be the prompting force of my reading -- that's just literary lust.”

Thinking Writing May Matter Would Be Reading Force Deals Teach Nice Wonderful Reader Genius Skills Lust Being Nice Glowing Avid Immersion

Author:Tanith Lee

“I don't think you could teach someone to be a genius, but you can certainly teach them to not make rookie mistakes and to look at writing the way a writer looks at writing, and not just the way a reader looks at writing. There are a lot of techniques and skills that can be taught that will be helpful to anybody, no matter how gifted they are, and I think writing programs can be very good for people.”

People Thinking Way Writing Looks Matter Mistake Teach Taught Reader Genius Skills Program Very Good Technique Helpful Gifted Rookies

Author:Michael Chabon

“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

“I'm not looking to write the great American novel, win a Pulitzer or teach history. I write to entertain my readers.”

Writing Winning Teach Novel Reader Great American

Author:Dorothy Garlock

“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

“Increasingly, those who used to teach and write critical or theoretical texts are writing fiction, poetry and so on; and kinds of texts are being produced that call for budding readers rather different from those who studied literature in the past.”

Writing Kind Different Past Used Poetry Literature Fiction Teach Reader Critical Theoretical Writing Fiction

Author:Nicholas Royle

“I approach stories as a private educational enterprise: I want to learn about something. I teach myself through research, reporting, and thinking, and then, when I feel like I know the story, I tell it to readers.”

Thinking Knows Want Feels Stories Teach Reader Approach Research Educational Enterprise

Author:Susan Orlean

“I feel no obligation to teach my readers anything, to impart any sort of wisdom, to teach any sort of lesson, to instill any sort of morality. All I'm trying to do is make them and their parents laugh.”

Feels Trying Parent Teach Laughing Reader Morality Lessons Obligation Impart Instill

Author:Michael Ian Black

“Just as the historian can teach no real history until he has cured his readers of the romantic delusion that the greatness of a queen consists in her being a pretty woman and having her head cut off, so the playwright of the first order can do nothing with his audience until he has cured them of looking at the stage through the keyhole, and sniffing round the theatre as prurient people sniff round the divorce court.”

Source: George Bernard Shaw: Collected Articles, Lectures, Essays and Letters: Thoughts and Studies from the Renowned Dramaturge and Author of Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Pygmalion, Arms and The Man, Saint Joan, Caesar and Cleopatra, Androcles And The Lion

“I try to be aware of what I'm concerned about, aware of how I feel about myself in the world, aware of how I feel about the issues of the day, but I guess I don't want to write essays in my head about my craft and maybe it's because I teach and talk about craft of other writers as a reader. I feel the moment I start doing that is when it's going to kill me.”

World Want Feels Writing Trying Moments Teach Issues Reader Concerned Crafts Essays Kill Me

Author:Chang-Rae Lee

“I think [testing] has had a profoundly problematic impact on student learning. It must seem to students that their worth as individuals is equivalent to their test score. The stress the high stakes culture has on teachers is also highly negative and must surely impact students in a negative way. It also de-professionalizes teachers because it encourages them to be script readers, followers of rigid schedules, and to disregard the needs of the people they teach in favor of the scripts and schedules.”

“These days, most of my interactions with young people are centered on the poetry or theater classes I teach, so the students I know are reading contemporary poets (they love Willie Perdomo) and scripts (No Child, by Nilaja Sun and Twilight by Anna Deavere Smith). I don't know their reading habits outside of our class, but I believe that they enjoy stories that they can relate to, learn from, be challenged by - you know, the usual good writing that every reader craves.”

“The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead.”

World Attitude Teach Novel Reader Built Tolerance Certainty Novelists

Author:Milan Kundera