Quotes from Mortimer J. Adler

elements of fiction are connected by the total scene or background against which they stand out in relief.

2) Terms are connected in propositions. The elements of fiction are connected by the total scene or background against which they stand out in relief.

become at home in this imaginary world; know it as if you were an observer on the scene; become a member of its population, willing to befriend its characters, and able to participate in its happenings by sympathetic insight, as you would do in the actions and sufferings of a friend.

What I have in mind when I use the phrase "personal conversation" is often called a "heart-to-heart talk.

The writer isn't trying not to be caught, although it sometimes seems so. Successful communication occurs in any case where what the writer wanted to have received finds its way into the reader's possession. The writer's skill and the reader's skill converge upon a common end.

You have become acquainted with the characters. You have joined them in the imaginary world wherein they dwell, consented to the laws of their society, breathed its air, tasted its food, traveled its highways. Now you must follow them through their adventures.

The year after How to Read a Book was published, a parody of it appeared under the title How to Read Two Books; and Professor I. A. Richards wrote a serious treatise entitled How to Read a Page.

The scene or background, the social setting, is (like the proposition) a kind of static connection of the elements of fiction. The unraveling of the plot (like the arguments or reasoning) is the dynamic connection.

Suck talk is concerned with emotional problems of deep concern to the persons involved. It is deeply serious, probably more serious than any other kind of talk, for it aims to remove emotional misunderstandings or to alleviate, if not eliminate, emotional tensions.

The reason is that there are two possible relationships between the brain and the book, not just one, and these two relationships are illustrated by the two different experiences that can be had when reading the book.

If words could not be used ambiguously, if, in short, each word was an ideal term, language would be a diaphanous medium.

Note here the close relation between reading and listening. If we ignore the minor difference between these two ways of receiving communication, we can say that reading and listening are the same art - the art of being taught.

It is not surprising that the liberal arts were most assiduously cultivated in the Middle Ages than ever before or after. When theology is queen of the sciences, liberal education flourishes in her train.

To read a story well you must have your finger on the pulse of the narrative, be sensitive to its very beat.

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

don't criticize imaginative writing until you fully appreciate what the author has tried to make you experience.

if we lack resources within ourselves, we cease to grow intellectually, morally, and spiritually. And when we cease to grow, we begin to die.

But many of the conceptual constructs that we employ in scientific and in philosophical thought concern objects such as black holes and quarks in physics, and God, spirits, and souls in metaphysics. These are objects about which it is of fundamental importance to ask about their existence in reality.

you can train yourself to follow as it moves more and more quickly across and down the page. You can do this yourself. Place your thumb and

Read it quickly and with total immersion.

importance of letting an imaginative book work on you.

People point to a highly original painter or sculptor and say, "He isn't following rules. He's doing something entirely original, something that has never been done before, something for which there are no rules." But they fail to see

Let the characters into your mind and heart; suspend your disbelief, if such it is, about the events. Do not disapprove of something a character does before you understand why he does it—if then. Try as hard as you can to live in his world, not in yours; there, the things he does may be quite understandable. And do not judge the world as a whole until you are sure that you have "lived" in it to the extent of your ability.

Unless you read it quickly you will fail to see the unity of the story. Unless you read intensely you will fail to see the details.