“I was eccentric, even as a kid. I was an early reader, an early talker. I was very curious in a way that maybe the other kids weren't. I was a little more outgoing.” WayLittlesKidsReaderCuriousEccentricTalkersOutgoing Author:Michael J. Fox
“The truth is, everything ultimately comes down to the relationship between the reader and the writer and the characters. Does or does not a character address moral being in a universal and important way? If it does, then it's literature.” IfsWayDoeImportantCharacterLiteratureMoralReaderTruth IsUniversalAddresses Author:Whitley Strieber
“When you're kept by a patron you don't have to duke it out in the media marketplace for dollars and for readers. In some ways that's a blessing because it takes a lot of pressure off you.” WayLiteratureMediaReaderBlessingPressureDollarsMarketplaceDukesPatron Author:David Talbot
“Readers have actually changed the way I've done things, changed the course of my career even, about four or five times. Just from reader feedback.” WayDoneCoursesCareersFiveFourChangedReaderThings ChangeFeedback Author:Debbie Macomber
“Teaching Plato in Palestine shows how philosophical thinking can illuminate important topics-in particular, the problem of finding ways to engage people with opposed ideologies in fruitful debate. The lively narratives, based on the author's experiences of working with various groups interested in using philosophical tools to clarify their thought and action, will engage a wide range of readers.” PeopleThinkingWayImportantShowsProblemActionGroupsTeachingParticularReaderFindingsToolsPhilosophicalVariousWideDebateIdeologyNarrativeRangeTopicsPlatoPalestineLivelyThoughts And ActionsPhilosophical Thinking Author:Gary Gutting
“The annual award of $5,000 goes to an author for a meritorious book published in the previous year for children or young adults. Scott O'Dell established this award to encourage other writers--particularly new authors--to focus on historical fiction. He hoped in this way to increase the interest of young readers in the historical background that has helped to shape their country and their world.” WorldWayYearsChildrenBookCountryYoungInterestFictionFocusReaderShapesAdultsIncreaseHistoricalYoung AdultBackgroundsAwardsHistorical FictionAnnualsDellPrevious Years Author:Scott O'Dell
“It is a little out of touch to presume that someone wants to follow your every observation and insight over the course of hundreds of pages without any sort of payoff. That's why writing isn't a one-way street. You have to give something back: an interesting plot, a surprise, a laugh, a moment of tenderness, a mystery for the reader to piece together.” WayWantGivingWritingLittlesMomentsTogetherCoursesInterestingLaughingPiecesMysteryStreetsReaderPagesSurpriseInsightObservationOne WayPlotTendernessPayoff Author:Christopher Bollen
“Most scientists are without exception adorably quirky, and one of the ways of making it more accessible was to try to get readers interested in the person.” WayTryingPersonsReaderScientistExceptionQuirky Author:Bill Bryson
“There are people already sharing eBooks out there, .. and they do it simply because they love books. You don't buy a second copy of a book, cut the spine off, lay each page on a scanner, run that .tif through an OCR (Optical Character Reader), hand edit the resulting output for errors and then post it online if you don't love the book. it can up to 80 hours to turn a printed novel into an eBook. I figure if someone out there is willing to put in 80 hours of work promoting my book, then I'd prefer they do it in a way that gives a better return to me.” PeopleIfsWayGivingBookCharacterHandsRunningTurnsHoursNovelCuttingFiguresWillingReturnReaderPagesLaysErrorsPostsOnlineCopiesPromotingPrintedEditsSpineOutputReturn To Me Author:Cory Doctorow
“In presenting a mathematical argument the great thing is to give the educated reader the chance to catch on at once to the momentary point and take details for granted: two trivialities omitted can add up to an impasse). The unpractised writer, even after the dawn of a conscience, gives him no such chance; before he can spot the point he has to tease his way through a maze of symbols of which not the tiniest suffix can be skipped.” WayGivingTwoChanceReaderConscienceArgumentAddDetailsAccidentsGreat ThingsEducatedSpotsSymbolsGrantedMathematicalDawnPresentingTeaseMomentaryMazesTrivialityImpasse Author:John Edensor Littlewood
“[from a reader] Whenever I feel myself resenting someone, I reach out. I have made good friends that way.” WayFeelsMadeWomenReaderReach OutGood Friend Author:Amy Dickinson
“The National Book Festival is a great way for families and friends to share the creative works of some of America's most-loved authors, .. Readers of all ages can listen to favorite writers speaking about their books, have books autographed, meet many storybook characters and enjoy a day on the National Mall.” WayBookCharacterAgeAmericaEnjoyCreativeShareReaderFamily And FriendsFestivalsMallsCreative Work Author:Laura Bush
“A good writer refuses to be socialized. He insists on his own version of things, his own consciousness. And by doing so he draws the reader's eye from its usual groove into a new way of seeing things.” WayEyeConsciousnessSeeingReaderDrawsRefuseVersionsUsualNew WaysGood WritersGroove Author:Bill Barich
“Labels don't mean much to me one way or another -- except when they close the minds of potential readers. I'd much rather we do away with genres and simply file everything under fiction. I know it can work -- one of my favourite record stores (Waterloo Music in Austin) simply files everything alphabetically and no one seems to have much problem finding what they're looking for.” KnowsWayMindMeanProblemSeemsFictionRecordsReaderFindingsStoresOne WayLabelsGenreFavouriteFilesAustinRecord StoresWaterloo Author:Charles de Lint
“I think too much is known about me already. I think biographical information can get in the way of the reading experience. The interchange between the reader and the work. For example, I know far too much about Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut. Because I know as much as I do about their personal lives, I can't read their work without this interjecting itself. So if I had it to do over, I'd probably go the way of J.D. Salinger or Thomas Pynchon. And just stay out of it altogether and let all the focus be on the work itself and not on me.” IfsThinkingKnowsWayI CanReadingKnownToo MuchFocusInformationExampleReaderPersonal LifeInterchangeSalingerReading Experience Author:Tom Robbins
“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
“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.” PeopleIfsWorldWayWantMeanStillsI CanBookCultureReadingAsksAnswersFictionChangedReturnReaderScandal Book:Conversations with Philip Roth Source: Conversations with Philip Roth
“It is well to start by distinguishing the few really great - the major novelists who count in the same way as the major poets, in the sense that they not only change the possibilities of the art for practitioners and readers, but that they are significant in terms of the human awareness they promote; awareness of the possibilities of life.” WayHumansWellsArtTermAwarenessPossibilityPoetReaderMajorsSignificantNovelistsReally Great Author:F. R. Leavis
“Spirits...Ghosts...Angels...whichever yo wish to call them - Reader, they do exist. I've seem them all my life, but I've learned to say nothing. And for all you cynics out there, just remember, there is no proof either way. So I choose to believe. In my opinion, it's much the best option.” WayBelieveSeemsRememberSpiritWishOpinionReaderAngelProofGhostI've Learned Author:Lucinda Riley
“I don't want to write things that people don't want to read. I would have no pleasure in producing something that sold 600 copies but that was considered very wonderful. I would prefer to sell 20,000 copies because the readers loved it. When I write books I don't actually think about the market in that way. I just tell myself the story. I don't think I'm talking to a 10-year-old boy or a six-year-old girl. I just write on the level the story seems to call for.” PeopleThinkingWayWantWritingYearsBookStoriesSeemsGirlPleasureLevelsTalkingBoysWonderfulReaderSixSellsCopiesSix Year Olds Author:Emily Rodda
“To say that an author is a reader or a reader an author, to see a book as a human being or a human being a book, to describe the world as text or a text as the world, are ways of naming the readers craft.” WorldWayHumansBookHuman BeingsReaderCrafts Author:Alberto Manguel
“Nowadays when a poet with one privately printed book can have his next three years taken care of by a Guggenheim fellowship, a Kenyon Review fellowship, and the Prix de Rome, it is hard to remember what chances the poet took in that small-town world, how precariously hand-to-mouth his existence was. And yet in one way the old days were better; [Vachel] Lindsay after a while, by luck and skill, got far more readers than any poet could get today.” WorldWayYearsBookHardHandsCareTodayRememberThreeNextChanceExistenceTakenPoetReaderSkillsMouthsTownsLuckOne WayReviewsRomeThree YearsSmall TownFellowshipPrintedOld DaysLuck And SkillPrinted Books Author:Randall Jarrell
“You know, I don't think a lot about why one book connects with its readers and another doesn't. Probably because I don't want to start thinking, "Am I popular?" I spent way too much time thinking about that in high school.” ThinkingKnowsWayWantBookSchoolToo MuchReaderHigh School Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
“The book is finished by the reader. A good novel should invite the reader in and let the reader participate in the creative experience and bring their own life experiences to it, interpret with their own individual life experiences. Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.” WayShouldBookDifferentIndividualNovelCreativeReaderFinishedDifferent WaysInvitesLife ExperienceIndividual Life Author:Alan Lightman
“You have to seduce the reader, manipulate their mind and heart, listen to the music of language. I sometimes think of prose as music, in terms of its rhythms and dynamics, the way you compress and expand the attention of a reader over a sentence, the way the tempo pushes you towards an image or sensation. We want an intense experience, so that we can forget ourselves when we enter the world of the book. When you are reading, the physical object of the book should disappear from your hands.” ThinkingWorldWayWantShouldWritingMindHeartBookSometimesHandsReadingLanguageTermForgetAttentionObjectsReaderSentencesDisappearIntenseRhythmProseSensationsHeart And MindManipulateTempoDynamicsSeducing Author:Carlos Ruiz Zafon
“I think readers appreciate those of us who stay in the trenches and fight the good fight even when times get tough. I know that I, personally, lost respect for writers who, when there was a downturn in the market, started shouting from the rooftops that they wrote thrillers and suspense novels rather than horror. As far as I'm concerned, those wussboys should sever all ties with the horror community if that's the way they feel and get out of the way so real horror writers can do their work.” IfsThinkingKnowsWayFeelsShouldRealFightingLostCan DoCommunityNovelReaderHorrorToughConcernedAppreciateSuspenseTiesShoutingThrillersTrenchesGood FightRooftopsDownturnSuspense NovelsFight The Good FightLost Respect Author:Bentley Little
“As far as I know, Clifford Pickover is the first mathematician to write a book about areas where math and theology overlap. Are there mathematical proofs of God? Who are the great mathematicians who believed in a deity? Does numerology lead anywhere when applied to sacred literature? Pickover covers these and many other off-trail topics with his usual verve, humor, and clarity. And along the way the reader will learn a great deal of serious mathematics.” KnowsWayWritingFirstsDoeBookLiteratureDealsSeriousReaderAreasMathematicsSacredMathProofTheologyClarityMathematicalUsualMathematicianTopicsTrailsDeitiesProof Of GodMathematical ProofNumerology Author:Martin Gardner
“The speeding reader guts a book the way the skillful clean fish. The gills are gone, the tail, the scales, the fins; then the fillet slides away swifly as though fed to a seal.” WayBookGoneReaderCleanFishesScalesGutsFedsTailsSlidesSealsSkillfulSpeedingFins Author:William H. Gass
“We were pregnant at the time, and while I was out there I started to realize that if I had a daughter, there would come a day when I would have to apologize to her for my profession. I would have to apologize for the way it treats and speaks to women readers, and the way it treats its female characters.” IfsWayBookCharacterSpeakRealizingReaderDaughterFemaleTreatsProfessionComicPregnantApologizingComic BookFemale CharactersWere Pregnant Author:Matt Fraction
“It starts with the writing. We have to think of all these characters - we have to treat them all equally. We have to think of them as having an interior life and having motivations. When I'm drawing female characters, I'm looking for that. I'm looking for subtext. I'm looking for ways to make the reader relate to them in a way that goes beyond the pure aesthetic value. You know, just drawing an attractive woman really gets kind of boring after a while.” ThinkingKnowsWayWritingKindBookCharacterMotivationValuesReaderPureFemaleTreatsBoringDrawingComicRelateAttractiveAestheticComic BookInteriorsFemale CharactersSubtextAttractive Woman Author:Cliff Chiang
“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.” PeopleThinkingWayWritingLooksMatterMistakeTeachTaughtReaderGeniusSkillsProgramVery GoodTechniqueHelpfulGiftedRookies Author:Michael Chabon
“This book is not a polemic treatise but a powerful, well-researched account that sensitizes any reader to the ways in which in-difference permits brutality and genocide.” WayWellsBookDifferencesPowerfulReaderAccountsPermitGenocideBrutalityPolemics Author:John M Swomley
“Paranormal fiction offers authors - and readers - the chance to answer the question, what if? All the different ways that question can be answered make for extremely entertaining reading.” IfsWayDifferentReadingChanceAnswersFictionReaderOffersDifferent WaysParanormalWhat IfEntertaining Author:Jeaniene Frost
“Are You Seeing Me? is written powerfully with both the heart and the head, and neither gives an inch. It's funny, moving and hugely insightful. Darren Groth puts the reader into the heads of Perry and Justine in a way that feels so true and so revealing that I think I've come away with a greater capacity for empathy. I didn't know a book could do that. We all need to spend some time inside this story.” ThinkingKnowsWayNeedsGivingFeelsHeartBookStoriesMovingGreaterWrittenSeeingReaderEmpathyCapacityInsightfulInchesRevealingDarrenJustine Author:Nick Earls
“reading is not a passive act. It's a creative act. It's a relationship between the writer and a person the writer will probably never meet. I think it's very wrong to write in a way that leaves no room for the reader to maneuver. I don't want to get in the way. What I'd really like to do is to perform the Indian Rope Trick - go higher and higher and eventually disappear.” ThinkingWayWantWritingPersonsReadingRoomsCreativeReaderHigherDisappearTricksIndianPassiveRope Author:Jeanette Winterson
“A good story is alive, ever changing and growing as it meets each listener or reader in a spirited and unique encounter, while the moralistic tale is not only dead on arrival, it's already been embalmed. It's safer that way. When a lively story goes dancing out to meet the imagination of a child, the teller loses control over meaning. The child gets to decide what the story means.” WayMeanChildrenStoriesLiteratureLosesImaginationAliveGrowingReaderUniqueDancingTalesEncountersListenersGood StoryLivelyArrivalsSpiritedChildren's Literature Author:Katherine Paterson
“It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.” WayWantFeelsMayFactsReaderDisciplineExcellentSkipBrevity Book:A Joy Forever Source: A Joy Forever
“The built-in form is a window frame. You can use this genre [crime fiction] to go where you want to go, and explore what you want to explore. In some ways it gives you a lot of freedom because you have a framework readers are looking for.” WayWantGivingUseFormFictionCrimeReaderBuiltWindowWhat You WantGenreFrameworkCrime Fiction Author:Michael Connelly
“I've always thought that one of the things that the Internet and the gaming world permits as a narrative technique is to not tell the story from beginning to end - to tell stories sideways, to give alternative possibilities that the reader can, in a way, choose between.” WorldWayGivingEndsStoriesPossibilityReaderInternetTechniqueAlternativesNarrativePermitGamingSideways Author:Salman Rushdie
“A lot of the ways that I like to approach comic books, or anything like that, is not just the book itself, but the fans of it, the readers, the world that exists around it as a cultural object.” WorldWayBookFansObjectsReaderApproachComicComic Book Author:Kate Beaton
“Poems reveal secrets when they are analyzed. The poet's pleasure in finding ingenious ways to enclose her secrets should be matched by the reader's pleasure in unlocking and revealing these secrets.” WayShouldPleasureSecretPoetReaderFindingsRevealingIngeniousMatchedUnlocking Author:Diane Wakoski
“Traditional publishers will be dominant, and they should be because they really do assure quality. But eBooks, which are huge already, are going to eclipse everything. They will save traditional publishing the way DVDs saved movie studios (for a while) and they'll greatly expand the number of readers.” WayShouldNumbersQualityHugeReaderStudiosSavedTraditionalPublishingDominantPublishersEclipseDvds Author:Steven Pressfield
“I think that an anthill is better than a nest ... that in the anthill among a hundred thousand or a million you are freer than in a nest, where all sit around and look at one another, waiting until scientists finally discover ways to make us mind readers. ... the psychology of the nest is loathsome to me, and I always sympathize with one who flees his nest, even if he flees into an anthill, where it may be crowded but one can find solitude - that most natural, most worthy state of man, that precious and intense state of being conscious of the world and of oneself.” IfsThinkingMenWorldWayMindLooksMayStatesWaitingNaturalMillionsPsychologyReaderThousandSolitudeConsciousHundredScientistOneselfWorthyIntenseCrowdedNests Author:Nina Berberova
“Readers have no doubt noticed how seldom builders live in houses of their own construction. You will find a town or village expanding in all directions with their masterpieces of modernity in the way of houses and bungalows; but the builder himself you will usually find living nearer the heart of things, snugly and comfortably housed in some more substantial, if less convenient, building of less recent date.” IfsWayHeartHouseDoubtBuildingReaderTownsNo DoubtVillageConstructionMasterpieceExpandingConvenientModernityBuilder Book:Lark Rise to Candleford Source: Lark Rise to Candleford
“To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to force him to lay it down with a higher ideal of life than he had when he took it up.” ThinkingWayForceCan DoFictionPiecesReaderHigherIdealsLaysMy WayWay Of Thinking Author:Gene Stratton-Porter
“I'm an avid reader, and though it doesn't always work out in terms of relaxation, I've got to keep myself up to date with current affairs. I was a journalism student in college, and I don't feel like I can relax unless I feel informed. When people say they can't watch the news because it's too stressful, I just think, ignorance isn't bliss. It's just another way to procrastinate.” PeopleThinkingWayFeelsI CanTermWatchesStudentsIgnoranceCollegeReaderNewsAffairCurrentsWork OutJournalismBlissRelaxRelaxationAnother WayStressfulProcrastinatingAvidUp To DateCurrent Affairs Author:Sophia Bush
“As far as nonviolence and Spiritual Activism, Marshall Rosenberg is it! Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, is essential reading for anyone who wants to improve their communication skills. Applying the concepts within the book will help guide the reader towards a more loving, compassionate, and nonviolent way of understanding and functioning with others, and foster more compassion in the world. I highly recommend this book.” WorldWayWantBookHelpingSpiritualLife IsReadingLanguageUnderstandingCompassionCommunicationReaderSkillsEssentialsConceptsGuidesActivismCommunication SkillsCompassionateNonviolenceNonviolent Communication Author:Marianne Williamson
“My platform has been to reach reluctant readers. And one of the best ways I found to motivate them is to connect them with reading that interests them, to expand the definition of reading to include humor, science fiction/fantasy, nonfiction, graphic novels, wordless books, audio books and comic books.” WayHas BeensBookReadingFoundInterestFictionFantasyNovelReaderScience FictionDefinitionsBest WayComicNonfictionPlatformsComic BookGraphicReluctantGraphic NovelsAudioAudio Books Author:Jon Scieszka
“As a writer, its important to stay true to your story without giving a hoot about publishers, critics and readers. You should do your karma as an author the way you want to, and rest is up to God.” WayWantGivingShouldImportantStoriesReaderCriticsKarmaPublishersStay TrueHoot Author:Amish Tripathi
“Part of me becomes the characters I'm writing about. I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result.” ThinkingWayFeelsWritingCharacterResultsReader Author:Louis Sachar