Quotes About Readers

Best-selling horror fiction is indeed necessarily conservative because it must entertain a large number of readers. It's like network television. I'm your local cable access station.

I realize that what I have written so far about supernatural horror stories sounds as if my goal in writing them is to demoralize and depress my readers. I assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. In my literary philosophy, if story fails to entertain readers, to captivate them with characters and incidents they never could have imagined themselves, then that story has failed.

Homer makes us hearers, and Virgil leaves us readers Alexander Pope

Some people don't like my fiction, because they prefer the nonfiction. But moving around keeps the work fresh for me and, hopefully, for my one or two readers who follow me from book to book!

I will now make an apology, although I will do my best not to repeat it. (Good readers do not read fiction, after all, to put up with the author's regrets.)

I always think that it's wrong to put images of my protagonists on the cover of my novels because readers can identify with characters only if they are given the chance to imagine them independently.

Qué extraños lectores son ustedes, qué extraño país es este.

readers tend to like a character who is at least superficially like themselves. But they quickly lose interest unless this particular character is somehow out of the ordinary. The character may wear the mask of the common man, but underneath his true face must always be the face of the hero.

The air in the library rooms was silent, full of ideas, the thinking of the writers of books, the thinking of the readers of books.

Honest and earnest criticism from those whose interests are most nearly touched,—criticism of writers by readers,—this is the soul of democracy and the safeguard of modern society. If

That sense of contributing to a community is never more rewarding than when you discover something that you believe can improve your readers' lives by changing what and how they think.

Readers often feel they know an author because they've read their books. To a degree, this is often true. We write from our individual worldviews, using the beliefs and understanding we have of the world and others.

Authorship is exhibitionism, and readers a species of voyeur.

When asked about his "open relationship" with fans: Yes. We have an open relationship. Obviously they can see other authors if they want, and I can see other readers.

The readers are the ones who let us live our dreams. I try to write books which are really compelling - that you'd take on vacation and rather than going out, you'd read in your hotel room because you had to find out what happened. Hopefully that's what readers are responding to.

The infant New York Times boasted that no newspaper printing what was really worth reading ever perished for lack of readers.

Decades ago, Rudolph Flesch discovered that readers were not just attracted to words, but to the breathing room between sentences and paragraphs. Long sentences should be followed by short ones, and large paragraphs should be followed by short ones, he decided.

Part of dedicating your life to studying literature is realizing that storytelling is more than just make-believe and that make-believe is far more important that we all pretend -- make believe -- it is. One way or another books tell the stories of their readers. But telling our lives is not the same as shaping them, whittling them away. Suddenly Jill had lost control. Her books had taken over and were in charge.

Unless their use by readers bring them to life, books are indeed dead things.

Books themselves need no defense. Their spokesmen come and go, their readers live and die, they remain constant.

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.

I do a little fact checking now and then. Other than that its impact is simply that email has revolutionized communication for me, and my website has built up a community of readers, which is a lot of fun.

Villainy can win against one library, but not against an organization of readers.

the Super Structure Principle may be stated as follows: The power of your story is directly proportional to the readers' experience of it, and the readers' experience is directly proportional to the soundness of the structure.