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Readers Quotes

Browse 215 quotes about Readers.

Readers Quotes

“As bills shuffled like playing cards, Bernice thought of how she'd earned each dollar, all the weeks and months and years spent as librarian of the Savage Crossing Public Library; all the library checkout cards stamped with due dates, the books shelved and reshelved, the late fees waived. Pride swelled beneath her breastbone, not because she'd soon be walking around with money in her purse, but because during her career she had introduced reluctant readers to perfect books at least a few times. Such a simple act could sometimes be life-changing.”

“Oh, look at me, Montag. The man who loved books, no, the boy who was wild for them, insane for them, who climbed the stacks like a chimpanzee gone mad for them. I ate them like salad, books were my sandwich for lunch, my tiffin and dinner and midnight munch. I tore out the pages, ate them with salt, doused them with relish, gnawed on the bindings, turned the chapters with my tongue! Books by the dozen, the score, and the billion. I carried so many home I was hunchbacked for years.”

“Dialogues must appear as natural as if coming from effortless writing. It must not sweat. Your beloved readers must not sweat. But here am I, literally sweating, because my characters are literally talking dirty in a steamy sweaty and bloody scene.”

“With my sort of book there's no resolution, because there's no solution. The problems aren't answered in the end because there is no answer. They're problems that are handed on to the reader, not solved for him so that he can go away thinking he lives in a beautiful world. It's not a beautiful world.”

“Readers have the right to say whatever the fuck they want about a book. Period. They have that right. If they hate the book because the MC says the word “delicious” and the reader believes it’s the Devil’s word and only evil people use it, they can shout from the rooftops “This book is shit and don’t read it” if they want. If they want to write a review entirely about how much they hate the cover, they can if they want. If they want to make their review all about how their dog Foot Foot especially loved to pee on that particular book, they can." [Blog entry, January 9, 2012]”

“Of all books printed, probably not more than half are ever read. Many are embalmed in public libraries; many go into private quarters to fill spaces; many are glanced at and put away...scarcely opened until the fire needs kindling. The most ardent book-lovers are not always the greatest readers; indeed, the rabid bibliomaniac seldom reads at all. To him books are as ducats to the miser, something to be hoarded and not employed... So pleasant it is to buy book; so tiresome to utilize them.”

“She read all sorts of things: travels, and sermons, and old magazines. Nothing was so dull that she couldn't get through with it. Anything really interesting absorbed her so that she never knew what was going on about her. The little girls to whose houses she went visiting had found this out, and always hid away their story-books when she was expected to tea. If they didn't do this, she was sure to pick one up and plunge in, and then it was no use to call her, or tug at her dress, for she neither saw nor heard anything more, till it was time to go home.”

“It turns out that some people are coming for your books: people who don’t read. The enemy has never been people who read a book and hate it. It’s often people who don’t read books at all. They used to go after dead authors because dead authors couldn’t fight back, but now they’re going after living authors quite a bit—of course, those authors are mostly Black, mostly queer, and mostly both.”

“Hören Sie, Corso: Es gibt keine unschuldigen Leser. Wir alle übertragen unsere persönlichen Perversitäten auf die Texte, die wir lesen. Ein Leser ist die Summe dessen, was er vorher gelesen und im Fernsehen und Kino gesehen hat. Zu den Anhaltspunkten, die der Autor gibt, wird der Leser immer noch seine eigenen hinzufügen. Und genau hier lauert die Gefahr: Das Übermaß an Literaturkenntnissen könnte auch Sie dazu verleitet haben, sich ein falsches oder irreales Bild von Ihrem Gegner zu machen.”

“And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them anything, you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they will know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellow-men.”

“From day one of being a librarian I'd learned that reading carried a lot of baggage, especially among people who didn't read a lot. The same folks who happily devoured television sitcoms and ate frozen pizza might stick their noses in the air about their reading material, stating that they read only nonfiction or literary works. To me, this was not discernment. This was snobbery. A good story was a good story. Period.”