“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.” ThinkingShouldMayLongLeftTermPiecesStagePoetReaderFameTenCriticsFollowingStealingTemplesPoundsOrthodoxJustificationLong AgoShrinksPosterityCondemnationCharlatans Author:Laura Riding
“A discursive student is almost certain to fall into bad company. Ten minutes with a French novel or a German rationalist have sent a reader away with a fever for life.” CertainFallReadingCompanyNovelMinutesStudentsReaderTenFeverBad Company Book:Pleasures of Literature Source: Pleasures of Literature
“Theoretically, we know that the world turns, but in fact we do not notice it, the earth on which we walk does not seem to move andwe live on in peace. This is how it is concerning Time in our lives. And to render its passing perceptible, novelists must... have their readers cross ten, twenty, thirty years in two minutes.” KnowsWorldYearsDoeTwoFactsSeemsEarthMovingTimeTurnsReadingWalksOur LivesMinutesReaderTenCrossesTwentiesPassingPassingsNovelistsThirtyThirty Years Author:Marcel Proust
“A novel can educate to some extent, but first a novel has to entertain. That's the contract with the reader: you give me ten hours and I'll give you a reason to turn every page. I have a commitment to accessibility. I believe in plot. I want an English professor to understand the symbolism while at the same time I want the people I grew up with - who may not often read anything but the Sears catalog - to read my books.” PeopleWantGivingFirstsBelieveMayBookReasonTurnsI BelieveHoursNovelGrewReaderTenGrew UpPagesCommitmentGive MeI Believe InPlotContractsProfessorsEducateSymbolismAccessibilitySears Author:Barbara Kingsolver
“It's an ethical pact I've made with myself and with the reader - not to invent. And when I can't remember, I say I can't remember. I'm just appalled by the memoirs published by people who regurgitate dialogue, conversations from when they were small children, and they go on for three or four pages. I can't even remember what we said to each other ten minutes ago! How can I remember what was said sixty years ago? It's not possible.” PeopleYearsChildrenMadeSaidI CanRememberThreeFourMinutesGoes OnReaderTenConversationPagesYears AgoMemoirDialogueEthicalSixtySmall ChildPact Author:Paul Auster
“For anyone who conceives literature in terms of plurality of perspectives, Finnegans Wake has to be the apogee. For, as we are told, every word in it has three score and ten "toptypsical" meanings - an exaggeration, of course, but an important reminder to readers who like their fiction definite.” ImportantThreeCoursesLiteratureTermFictionPerspectiveReaderTenScoreDefiniteRemindersExaggerationFinnegans Wake Author:Philip Kitcher
“It seems like every ten years there's a book that says that poetry used to be popular, and now it's not, but we really have no way of knowing, in terms of relative size of audience and other things, exactly who readers were.” WayYearsBookSeemsUsedTermAudienceKnowingReaderTenSizeUsed To BeRelative Author:Robert Hass
“A writer's ambition should be to trade a hundred contemporary readers for ten readers in ten years' time and for one reader in a hundred years' time.” ShouldYearsReaderTenAmbitionHundredTradeContemporary Author:Arthur Koestler