Best reader & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 6

“Thomas Hauser respects boxing and boxers. He gives readers insight into what happens in and out of the ring. Everything he writes is fair-minded and reality-based with a human touch.”

Giving Writing Humans Reality Happens Reader Fairs Insight Rings Boxing Boxers

Author:Lennox Lewis

“When writers are self-conscious about themselves as writers they often keep a great distance from their characters, sounding as if they were writing encyclopedia entries instead of stories. Their hesitancy about physical and psychological intimacy can be a barrier to vital fiction. Conversely, a narration that makes readers hear the characters' heavy breathing and smell their emotional anguish diminishes distance. Readers feel so close to the characters that, for those magical moments, they become those characters.”

“Most of what I read is for reviewing purposes or related to something I want to write about. It's slightly utilitarian. I definitely miss that sense of being a disinterested reader who's reading purely for the pleasure of imagining his way into emotional situations and vividly realized scenes in nineteenth-century France or late nineteenth-century Russia.”

Way Want Writing Purpose Reading Pleasure Situation Century Missing Emotional Reader Scene Late Russia France Related Nineteenth Century Disinterested Utilitarian

Author:Pankaj Mishra

“The people who encouraged me weren't necessarily writers or readers themselves. They were people who were just pleased to see me devote my life to reading and writing.”

People Writing Reading Reader Reading And Writing

Author:Pankaj Mishra

“I like to listen to music that fits with what I'm writing. For each book, I've assembled a playlist, so readers can get a sense of what I was listening to while I was writing.”

Writing Book Listening Reader Fit Listening To Music Playlists

Author:Cassandra Clare

“Good writing is about finding and exploiting anecdotes that resonate with the reader. In storytelling, it's OK if you only make one point, as long as it's a good one.”

Ifs Writing Long Reader Findings Storytelling Good Writing Anecdotes

Author:Ben Clymer

“One of the great things about writing a series is that with each book, the novel is meant to stand alone on its own legs, but also to bring along those loyal readers who become attached to the characters over the years.”

Writing Years Book Character Novel Reader Series Legs Great Things Loyal Stand Alone

Author:Linda Fairstein

“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.”

Knows Way Writing Use Too Much Style Design Reader Cost Standards Backgrounds Clarity Fancy Orthodox Suitable Verbs Shortcuts Spelling Nouns Dialect Breezy Offbeat

Author:E. B. White

“When you're writing a book that is going to be a narrative with characters and events, you're walking very close to fiction, since you're using some of the methods of fiction writing. You're lying, but some of the details may well come from your general recollection rather than from the particular scene. In the end it comes down to the readers. If they believe you, you're OK. A memoirist is really like any other con man; if he's convincing, he's home. If he isn't, it doesn't really matter whether it happened, he hasn't succeeded in making it feel convincing.”

“Good writing is like a bomb: it explodes in the face of the reader.”

Writing Faces Reader Bombs Good Writing

Author:Nuruddin Farah

“Without a reader, I cannot write. It's like a kiss: they cannot be done alone.”

Writing Done Reader Kissing

Author:John Cheever

“I am a reader. I am a writer. People assume I do these things to escape. You couldn't be more right. I'm escaping a world I don't like. A world I have no control in. In this world, I am nothing. I am a color, a height, a weight, a number. But in the world of books and writing, I am amazing. I am powerful. I am different. People are better. Worlds are endless. Change is possible. Life is manageable.”

People World Writing Book Different Life Is Powerful Numbers This World Color Reader Weight Assuming Endless Height Different Peoples Escaping Manageable

Author:Philip K. Dick

“If there had been a job of being a reader, I would have taken that, because I love to read and I don't love to write. That would be blissful.”

Ifs Writing Would Be Jobs Taken Reader Love To Read

Author:Fran Lebowitz

“The basic rule [of writing] given us was simple and heartbreaking. A story to be effective had to convey something from the writer to the reader, and the power of its offering was the measure of its excellence. Outside of that, there were no rules.”

Writing Stories Given Simple Reader Excellence Offering Heartbreaking

Author:John Steinbeck

“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

“All your clear and pleasing sentences will fall apart if you don't keep remembering that writing is linear and sequential, that logic is the glue that holds it together, that tension must be maintained from one sentence to the next and from one paragraph to the next and from one section to the next, and that narrative - good old-fashioned storytelling - is what should pull your readers along without their noticing the tug.”

Ifs Should Writing Together Remember Fall Next Clear Reader Logic Sentences Storytelling Narrative Tension Sections Old Fashioned Falling Apart Noticing Paragraph Linear Glue One Sentence

Author:William Zinsser

“Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author.”

Writing Reading Next Reader Paragraph Good Writing Gimmicks

Book:On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

Source: On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction

“There's no subject you don't have permission to write about. Students often avoid subjects close to their heart ... because they assume that their teachers will regard those topics as 'stupid.' No area of life is stupid to someone who takes it seriously. If you follow your affections you will write well and will engage your readers.”

Ifs Writing Wells Heart Life Is Teacher Subjects Stupid Students Reader Areas Regard Assuming Affection Permission Topics

Author:William Zinsser

“You must find some way to elevate your act of writing into an entertainment. Usually this means giving the reader an enjoyable surprise. Any number of devices will do the job.... These seeming amusements in fact become your 'style.' When we say we like the style of certain writers, what we mean is that we like their personality as they express it on paper.”

Way Giving Writing Mean Facts Jobs Certain Numbers Style Personality Reader Paper Surprise Entertainment Devices Amusement Enjoyable Seeming

Author:William Zinsser

“Whenever you're writing a book or creating a movie or a game, your first task is to get the reader to suspend disbelief, to buy into the logic and boundaries of your world, even though those boundaries might include things like dragons and magic.”

World Writing Firsts Book Might Games Magic Reader Creating Tasks Logic Boundaries Dragons Writing A Book Disbelief

Author:R. A. Salvatore

“I think of myself as writing for one person, that one perfect reader who understands and loves.”

Thinking Writing Persons Perfect Reader And Love

Author:Anne Sexton

“It's surprising that readers don't see challenging writing as morally hazardous, when it might be pushing the same kinds of boundaries as art does.”

Writing Kind Doe Art Might Challenges Reader Boundaries Pushing Surprising

Author:Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook

“Readers re-create any story to suit their own needs. They re-clothe the story in their own shirts. Put simply: just as we write the story we need to write, they read the story they need to read.”

Needs Writing Stories Reader Suits Shirts

Author:Jane Yolen

“Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves.”

Writing Literature Influence Reader Bottom Individuality Preacher Auditors

Author:Aldous Huxley

“I've been accused over the years of being close to players, but if something needs to be written, I've tried my best to write it and write it in a way that is fair to whoever I'm writing about and is fair to all of my readers.”

Ifs Way Needs Writing Years Player Written Reader Fairs Accused

Author:Peter King

“When I write fiction, I never try to deliver a message; I just want to tell a story. But I admit that I want the story to be memorable and the characters to touch the reader's heart.”

Want Writing Trying Heart Character Stories Fiction Reader Messages Memorable

Author:Isabel Allende

“The writer trusts nothing she writes-it should be too reckless and alive for that, it should be beautiful and menacing and slightly out of control. . . . Good writing . . . explodes in the reader's face. Whenever the writer writes, it's always three or four or five o'clock in the morning in her head.”

Should Writing Beautiful Faces Three Morning Five Four Alive Reader Clock Reckless Good Writing

Author:Joy Williams

“Writing shouldn't come between the reader and what's being described. It should be as transparent as possible.”

Should Writing Reader Transparent

Author:Diana Athill

“I think precision in writing goes hand in hand with not trying to say everything. You try and say two-thirds, so the reader will involve himself or herself.”

Thinking Writing Trying Two Hands Reader Thirds Hand In Hand Precision

Author:Michael Ondaatje

“I'm not the fastest reader or writer but occasionally I'll write things down just so I don't forget them.”

Writing Forget Reader

Author:Thighpaulsandra

“As a reader, I have a very short attention span and a low tolerance for boredom, and I find that comes in handy with my writing. If I get bored writing something, I pity the people who will then try to read it.”

People Ifs Writing Trying Attention Reader Lows Tolerance Pity Bored Boredom Handy Attention Span Short Attention Spans

Author:John Scalzi

“You can write a 1st paragraph that continues the same thought you expressed in your headline. If you stop a reader with a headline about house paint, you can be sure of at least one thing about that reader: He wants more info about house paint. You will not lose him as long as you continue to give him what he wants.”

Ifs Want Giving Writing Long House Loses One Thing Reader Paint Headlines Paragraph

Author:John Caples

“I struggle with confidence, every time. I’m never completely sure I can write another book. Maybe my scope is too grand, my questions too hard, surely readers won’t want to follow me here. A novel is like a cathedral, it knocks you down to size when you enter into it.”

Want Writing I Can Book Hard Novel Struggle Reader Size Scope Follow Me Cathedrals

Author:Barbara Kingsolver

“Most people write the same sentence over and over again. The same number of words-say, 8-10, or 10-12. The same sentence structure. Try to become stretchy-if you generally write 8 words, throw a 20 word sentence in there, and a few three-word shorties. If you're generally a 20 word writer, make sure you throw in some threes, fivers and sevens, just to keep the reader from going crosseyed.”

People Ifs Writing Trying Three Numbers Reader Structure Sentences Three Words Sentence Structure

Author:Janet Fitch

“...You believe that the kind of story you want to tell might be best received by the science fiction and fantasy audience. I hope you're right, because in many ways this is the best audience in the world to write for. They're open-minded and intelligent. They want to think as well as feel, understand as well as dream. Above all, they want to be led into places that no one has ever visited before. It's a privilege to tell stories to these readers, and an honour when they applaud the tale you tell.”

“From the beginning I felt that I didn't ever want to leave the impression that the process of writing a poem is totally mysterious. I couldn't explain everything that went on in the creation of a poem, but I could try to explain as much as I knew. I thought readers deserved that. I didn't want to set myself apart as being someone special.”

Want Writing Trying Felt Process Special Creation Reader Impression Mysterious Special Someone

Author:Pattiann Rogers

“I sometimes feel that my goal as a novelist would be to write a novel in which the language was so transparent that the reader would forget that language was the medium of understanding. Of course that's not possible, but it's some sort of idealized goal.”

Feels Writing Sometimes Would Be Courses Language Understanding Goal Forget Novel Reader Mediums Novelists Transparent

Author:Paul Auster

“I've been thinking so much about writing as a gift to readers - and how newness of subject (place or topic or person) is one of the biggest gifts at our disposal.”

Thinking Writing Persons Subjects Reader Topics Newness

Author:Leslie Jamison

“I want each character to be as unique as possible. I want them to reflect something of who they are in the way that they move and in how their bodies work. That was foremost in my head when I was writing Salvage: I wanted every gesture, every little movement, to really carry meaning and communicate meaning to the reader. I was very conscious of that when I was writing.”

Way Want Writing Littles Character Body Wanted Moving Movement Reader Unique Conscious Communicate Gestures Salvage Body Work

Author:Jesmyn Ward

“I allude to Back to the Future in the 1985 story to let folks know it was an inspiration and because it literally was the most time-travelly bit of pop culture we had in the mid 80's. I can talk about their tools for considering change. First, the book is metafictive in a traditional sense where I'm showing and telling the reader that the act of writing and reading is a reflexive way to push boundaries of real and literal time travel. Writers and readers are time travellers. The question is what we do with that time we traveled when we leave a book, leave a page.”

“I'm speaking to someone I'm trying to get to fall in love with me. I'm trying to speak intimately to one person. That should be clear. I'm not speaking to an audience. I'm not writing for the podium. I'm just writing, trying to write in a fairly quiet tone to one other reader who is by herself, or himself, and I'm trying to interrupt some silence in their life, which is utterance.”

Should Writing Trying Persons Fall Speak Silence Audience Clear Reader Quiet Falling In Love Tone Utterance

Author:Billy Collins

“As soon as I start to write I'm very aware, I'm trying to be aware that a reader just might well pick up this poem, a stranger. So when I'm writing - and I think that this is important for all writers - I'm trying to be a writer and a reader back and forth. I write two lines or three lines. I will immediately stop and turn into a reader instead of a writer, and I'll read those lines as if I had never seen them before and as if I had never written them.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Trying Wells Two Important Might Turns Three Lines Written Reader Picks Stranger Back And Forth

Author:Billy Collins

“Whereas if you were writing an op-ed piece or an essay, somebody would be asking, "What's your point?" With poetry you can stay in a moment for as long as you want. Poetry is about metaphor, about a thing standing in for something else. It's the thing that opens out to something else. What that something else is changes for readers. So what's on the page - it falls away.”

Ifs Want Writing Long Moments Would Be Fall Pieces Reader Pages Standing Asking Metaphor Poetry Is Essays

Author:Claudia Rankine

“I wasn't trying to write a corrective novel - that would just end up tasting like medicine, and I tried to stay away from polemics as best I could. I think that, if anything, Fobbit is my way of showing readers there's another side to war - the backstage of combat, if you will. If you play a word association game with Americans and say "war," what's the first thing that comes to mind? Soldiers running across a battlefield through a hail of bullets, right? Rambo, smoke, explosions. In Fobbit, I hope readers will see something a little different”

“It's disingenous for me to say that I wasn't trying to write a moral novel. By its very nature as a novel about the Iraq War, Fobbit steps into the political conversation. There's no way to avoid that. I can appreciate that readers are probably going to line up on one side of the novel or the other. I hope they go to those polar extremes, actually.”

Way Writing Trying I Can War Political Sides Lines Moral Steps Novel Reader Conversation Appreciate Iraq Extremes Iraq War

Author:Dave Abrams

“If Fobbit leaves a reader feeling stranded in some bland in-between territory, then I haven't done my job. But having said all that, I didn't consciously write the book with a particular moral intent. I took what I experienced and processed it through the sausage factory of fiction. It's up to readers to interpret what's on the page - as is the case with any novel.”

Ifs Writing Said Book Done Feelings Jobs Fiction Moral Cases Novel Havens Particular Reader Pages Territory Factories Sausage Bland Stranded

Author:Dave Abrams

“While writing, writers are living inside a character or characters, and when the book ekes into the world, writers are living inside the reader. That's more than connecting.”

World Writing Book Character Reader Connecting

Author:Lauren Groff

“Fiction is always a utopian task, in that there's an ideal you hold in your head as you write which inevitably fails in the moment of creation, in the insufficiency of words to convey meaning, or in the way the work is completed in the reader's head.”

Way Writing Moments Fiction Failing Creation Reader Ideals Tasks Utopian Insufficiency

Author:Lauren Groff

“It is hard to write about physically difficult things without causing the reader to disengage.”

Writing Hard Difficult Reader Difficult Things

Author:Akhil Sharma

“I think it's more difficult now to write a spy thriller with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many authors have tried, but few have succeeded in capturing the interest of readers.”

Thinking Writing Difficult Interest Reader Unions Soviet Collapse Soviet Union Spy Thrillers

Author:Nelson DeMille

Reader Quotes

Related topics

Reader Quotes