Quotessence
Home / Topics / Reader Quotes

Reader Quotes

Browse 3935 quotes about Reader.

Related topics

BookWritingIfsThinkingReadingStoriesPeopleWantWayKnowsWorldCharacterNovelShouldFeelsTryingGivingFirstsMindKindFictionWellsPagesLiteratureMayNeedsWrittenBelieveMeanImportantMightTwoLittlesEndsI CanRealPoetYearsIdeasMadeMenHas BeensHeartLongDoeLooksFactsPersonsCertainDifferentLanguageChildrenArtMatterSeemsUseHumansDoneEnoughFeelingsImaginationInterestWould BeSometimesHardStillsWantedAbleFormHappensLinesMomentsHandsYoungBigsCareHelpingSaidAsksAudiencePleasureSubjectsTurnsSelfCoursesEyeInterestingJobsAgeEnjoyWholeReasonAttentionLibraryKidsOrderMovingThreeTogetherGivenmore

Reader Quotes

“Underneath all his writing there is the settled determination to use certain words, to take certain attitudes, to produce a certain atmosphere; what he is seeing or thinking or feeling has hardly any influence on the way he writes. The reader can reply, ironically, "That's what it means to have a style"; but few people have so much of one, or one so obdurate that you can say of it, "It is a style that no subject can change.”

PeopleThinkingWayWritingMeanUseFeelingsCertainAttitudeSeeingInfluenceSubjectsStyleProduceReaderDeterminationAtmosphere
Author:Randall Jarrell
Create image

“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.”

ThinkingWritingImportantIdeasSelfUseBodySexAudienceEmotionalReaderAspectGood IdeasCensorshipTeensSensitivityPhysiologicalSelf Censorship
Author:Ellen Hopkins
Create image

“History is not truth versus falsehoods, but a mixture of both, a mélange of tendencies, reactions, dreams, errors, and power plays. What's important is what we make of it; its moral use. By writing history, we can widen readers' thinking and deepen their sympathies in every direction. Perhaps history should show us not how to control the world, but how to enlarge, deepen, and discipline ourselves.”

ThinkingWorldShouldWritingImportantPlayUseShowsDreamMoralHistoryReaderDisciplineErrorsReactionsTendenciesFalsehoodVersusMixturesWhat's ImportantWriting HistoryPower Play
Book:Heart Mountain
Create image

“Do you solemnly swear never to conceal a vital clue from the reader? Do you promise to observe seemly moderation in the use of gangs, conspiracies, Super Criminals and Lunatics and utterly and forever to forswear Mysterious Poisons unknown to science? Will you honor the King's English? ... If you fail to keep your promise, may other writers steal your plots and your pages swarm with misprints.”

IfsMayUseNovelForeverFailingMysteryReaderKingsHonorPromisePagesCriminalsStealingMysteriousPoisonPlotConspiracySwearModerationClueGangSwarmsMystery Novels
Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
Create image

“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.”

WorldSelfUseLightTurnsLanguageNaturalPleasureGriefAttentionColorReaderPerceptionEatingSummerUniquePraiseShameInvestmentWitDawnCompassionateNatural WorldEnergeticSkillfulDestroyersOmnipotenceWhimsyJunctureApricots
Author:Pattiann Rogers
Create image

“We chose to do this work mathematically, which has the advantage of precision but is not always appreciated by readers. It is perhaps for this reason that anthropologists have not shown much interest in these models, unlike economists, for example, for whom the use of mathematics poses no problem. However, one could reach the same conclusions by using just a bit of common sense.”

ReasonUseProblemBitsInterestCommonExampleReaderModelsAdvantageMathematicsCommon SenseConclusionEconomistNo ProblemAppreciatedPrecisionAnthropologists
Author:Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza
Create image

“This capacity for oversignifying, for reading in, is precisely what poets tap into, both in their own practice and in the poem the give to the reader; and in doing so they turn language against its own project of conceptual division, and use it to heal itself - and in the process - paradoxically - to articulate new concepts that it can't yet accommodate.”

GivingUsePoetryTurnsReadingLiteratureLanguageProcessPracticePoetReaderProjectsConceptsCapacityHealDivisionAccommodateHeal Itself
Author:Don Paterson
Create image

“A writer is someone who tells you one thing so someday he can tell his readers another thing: what he was thinking but declined to say, or what he would have thought had he been wiser. A writer turns his life into material, and if you're in his life, he uses yours, too.”

IfsThinkingUseTurnsOne ThingMaterialsReaderSomedayWiser
Book:Blood Will Out: The True Story of a Murder, a Mystery, and a Masquerade
Create image

“One might get the impression that I recommend a new methodology which replaces induction by counterinduction and uses a multiplicity of theories, metaphysical views, fairy tales, instead of the customary pair theory/observation. This impression would certainly be mistaken. My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is rather to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.”

UseMightScienceViewsTheoryReaderLimitsIntentionObviousImpressionTalesObservationFairyConvincePairsFairy TaleMistakenMetaphysicalMultiplicityScientific MethodEpistemologyMethodology
Book:Against Method
Create image

“We've clearly entered a period in which the analog of text is no longer important or relevant. All text will be electronic. I accept that fact. My house has thousands of books in it, and I've started to look at them completely differently. They now seem to me to be like antiquarian objects. Their use value has become negligible to me because I'm perfectly happy to read on an e-reader.”

LooksImportantBookFactsUseSeemsValuesHouseAcceptingObjectsReaderPeriodsRelevantAnalog
Author:Will Self
Create image

“Such humble talents as God had given me I will endeavour to put to their greatest use; if I am able to amuse, I will try to benefit too; and when I fell it my duty to speak unpalatable truth, with the help of God, I will speak it, through it be to the prejudice of my name and to the detriment of my reader's immediate pleasure as well as my own.”

IfsTryingWellsHelpingUseAbleNamesSpeakGivenMy OwnPleasureTalentDutyReaderBenefitsPrejudiceHumbleEndeavour
Author:Anne Bronte
Create image

“Intellectual culture seems to separate high art from low art. Low art is horror or pornography or anything that has a physical component to it and engages the reader on a visceral level and evokes a strong sympathetic reaction. High art is people driving in Volvos and talking a lot. I just don't want to keep those things separate. I think you can use visceral physical experiences to illustrate larger ideas, whether they're emotional or spiritual. I'm trying to not exclude high and low art or separate them.”

PeopleThinkingWantTryingArtIdeasUseSeemsSpiritualCultureStrongLevelsTalkingEmotionalReaderHorrorIntellectualLowsArt IsDrivingReactionsPornographyComponentsSympatheticEvokeVisceralHighs And LowsHigh ArtVolvo
Author:Chuck Palahniuk
Create image

“I also like to use a sensational headline. Many people read blogs in aggregators, which generally show only the headline. So you have to give people a reason to click through. Blogs need to be real and personal. Reading it should be like hanging out with you. I play music for my readers. I show them videos I like. I tell them what I did over the weekend. And I tell them what is happening in the technology, Internet, and VC markets.”

PeopleNeedsGivingShouldRealReasonPlayUseShowsSuccessReadingBusinessTechnologyReaderInternetHappeningsVideoHanging OutWeekendBeing RealBlogsHeadlinesClicksSensational
Author:Fred Wilson
Create image

“The inherent non-linearity of the digital allows for more input from others, including the subject and reader as collaborators. The top-down, bedtime-style story is of limited use. A non-linear narrative that allows for increased complexity and depth, and encourages both subject and reader to have greater involvement, will eventually emerge more fully from the digital environment. This, in a sense, is the more profound democratization of media.”

StoriesUseEnvironmentGreaterSubjectsMediaStyleReaderProfoundDepthIncludingNarrativeComplexityDigitalInherentInvolvementLinearInputBedtimeCollaboratorsTop DownDemocratization
Author:Fred Ritchin
Create image

“Explaining is a difficult art. You can explain something so that your reader understands the words; and you can explain something so that the reader feels it in the marrow of his bones. To do the latter, it sometimes isn't enough to lay the evidence before the reader in a dispassionate way. You have to become an advocate and use the tricks of the advocate's trade.”

WayFeelsArtSometimesEnoughUseDifficultReaderEvidenceTradeLaysBonesTricksLatterExplainingMarrowDispassionate
Book:The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design
Create image

“Place yourself in the background; write in a way that comes naturally; work from a suitable design; write with nouns and verbs; do not overwrite; do not overstate; avoid the use of qualifiers; do not affect a breezy style; use orthodox spelling; do not explain too much; avoid fancy words; do not take shortcuts as the cost of clarity; prefer the standard to the offbeat; make sure the reader knows who is speaking; do not use dialect; revise and rewrite.”

KnowsWayWritingUseToo MuchStyleDesignReaderCostStandardsBackgroundsClarityFancyOrthodoxSuitableVerbsShortcutsSpellingNounsDialectBreezyOffbeat
Author:E. B. White
Create image

“There are some simple maxims which I think might be commended to writers of expository prose. First: never use a long word if a short word will do. So, if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.”

IfsThinkingWantFirstsLongEndsUseMightSimpleReaderExpectationsThirdsSentencesStatementsGreat MenProseMaximsQualificationsShort WordsLong Words
Book:The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
Create image

“Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse, will depend upon the use our people will make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this: and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, an encourage it in others.”

PeopleIfsArtCharacterUseRememberNationsPracticeVirtueWiseDependsReaderBlessingProveContraryMiserableCurseRighteousnessSpheresThyselfGracious
Author:Patrick Henry
Create image

“When I use a name or place, I want to leave the reader open to the waterfall of determinacy that it may provoke. And I don't know, but I must mention the name Borges. I try to mention it in every one of my works. It's a mark, a stamp, a sort of homage to Argentinidad. But it's an homage that works through pat phrases, those stock images that populate his work: the night, labyrinths, libraries. That is, I don't want simply to pay homage to Borges, but rather the contrary: to recall his commonplaces.”

KnowsWantTryingMayUseNightNamesPayReaderMarkLibraryContraryPhrasesWorking ItRecallsProvokingStampsCommonplaceLabyrinthHomageWaterfallsBorges
Author:Sergio Chejfec
Create image

“I wouldn't have thought that the techniques of story-telling, which is what the novel is after all, can vary much because there are two things involved.There's a story and there's a listener, whose attention you have to keep. Now the only way in which you can keep a reader's attention to a story is in his wanting to know what is going to happen next. This puts a fairly close restriction on the method you must use.”

KnowsWayTwoStoriesUseHappensNextAttentionNovelReaderInvolvedMethodTechniqueTwo ThingsListenersRestrictionVary
Author:William Golding
Create image

“When I read to children, I try to become the characters. It's great if you can make a separate voice for each character. Sometimes you can lower your voice with excitement or get more intimate about it: you can lean forward and engage the children as a narrator or as a reader. It's particularly important that you find the voice that you want to use for each character, because then children can imagine that person as you're reading aloud. And of course, the illustrations help enormously.”

IfsWantTryingChildrenPersonsImportantSometimesCharacterHelpingUseCoursesReadingVoiceImagineReaderExcitementIntimateImagine ThatIllustrationNarratorsReading Aloud
Author:Julie Andrews
Create image

“I want to make sense of things, to understand the world, but my work is never really instructional. I have no wisdom to impart or give, so I think my dream readers would be people who just use the book as an excuse to get into their own cycle of thoughts. The book is just like a map. It's just a jotting-down of things that you can interpret in your own ways.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayWantGivingBookUseDreamWould BeReaderExcuseMake SenseCyclesMapsImpart
Author:Sarnath Banerjee
Create image

“The funny thing is, nationalism only could have come about in Europe after the invention of printing. You could have this thing that was a book in a vernacular language, and you could imagine there were other readers of this book who you couldn't see, but they were a theoretical union of readers who all use the same language. That is kind of a prerequisite for a national fantasy. You need that thing, and it's a strange thing.”

NeedsKindBookUseLanguageFantasyImagineStrangeReaderEuropeUnionsInventionNationalismTheoreticalFunny ThingsPrintingStrange ThingsPrerequisitesVernacular
Author:Ben Katchor
Create image