Quotes About Reader

Le plus important dans une Å"uvre littéraire, ce n'était pas le message que l'auteur avait souhaité nous transmettre, mais les nourritures intellectuelles et affectives que chaque lecteur pouvait y puiser lui-même.

I find myself subject to the entire range of emotions and reactions that a great book will call forth from its reader. I chuckle, laugh out loud, smile wistfully, cringe, widen my eyes in surprise, and even feel sadness--all from the neatly ordered rows of words and their explanations. All of the human emotions and experiences are right here in this dictionary, just as they would be in any fine work of literature. They just happen to be alphabetized.

To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.

One of the reasons we invented continuous prose was to lay out an argument, piling points on top of each other, weighing one view against another, even to invite the reader to look back at something earlier or later in a book.

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

'Modesty Blaise' is not well known in the United States, but in the United Kingdom, she's an institution - especially for a comic book reader of a certain age. She's a wonderful creation, and her strip ran in newspapers for a long time. So whenever female spies come to mind for us, they think of 'Modesty Blaise'.

There's a horrible stereotype of both the romance writer and the romance reader as somehow undereducated and unprofessional, when in fact there are a number of incredibly well-educated professional women who have chosen to leave their other careers and go into writing romance.

If you're writing a thriller, mystery, Western or adventure-driven book, you'd better keep things moving rapidly for the reader. Quick pacing is vital in certain genres. It hooks readers, creates tension, deepens the drama, and speeds things along.

I think, if I'm doing my job correctly, I'm presenting a scenario for you as the reader to engage with on your own. I mean, that's what the best art is supposed to do. It's not supposed to be political. I think if you read all my books, you know where I stand, pretty much.

I think, personally - I don't know if other readers would agree - but reading 'Penumbra,' I detect an Internet writer or a writer who came up on the Internet.

It is not the task of a reader to please her subjects.

Dr. Michael Rostafinski, and John Tebbel for advice and information; my wife and "first reader," Reade Johnson; and my editor at John Wiley, Hana Lane, for

Nothing is more lethal to the effect that a ghost story should make than for the author to provide alternative materialist solution. This reduces a poem to a puzzle and confines the reader's spirit instead of enlarging it.

After all, the reciprocity rule asserts that if justice is to be done, exploitation attempts should be exploited. READER

What attributes can we give our functions that will allow a casual reader to intuit the kind of program they live inside?

Her articles held a reader's interest.

Bernard Berenson once said that the formation of the great library he assembled at I Tatti was his greatest achievement. I feel much the same way about the library (as distinct from the bookshop) that I've put together in Archer City. The collection—or, more properly, the accumulation—now numbers about 28,000 volumes. If I were beamed up tomorrow my library would attest to the fact that a reader had once been there. -- On Rereading, NYRB July 14, 2005

Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation. As no one, who knows what he is about in good company, would venture to talk all, so no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good breeding, would presume to think all. The truest respect which you can pay to the reader's understanding, is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.

Let love therefore be what it will, my Uncle Toby fell into it—And possibly, gentle reader, with such a temptation so wouldst thou: For never did thy eyes behold, or thy concupiscence covet, anything in this world more concupiscible than widow Wadman.

Fiction writing starts off by requiring the towering arrogance that enables one to sit down at the typewriter in the belief that someone somewhere will actually be eager to read the productions of our own private imaginations. But that arrogance must be buffered by the humility that leads us to learn our craft and strive to make our work comprehensible and inviting and accessible to the reader.

But there is supposed to be sex in this book, isn't there? I suppose I could write a chapter without having anybody do anything to anybody, just talking and thinking, but it seems a bad idea for the very first chapter of the book. The reader might get discouraged. It seems, oh, very egoish to feel that total strangers will be that interested in what one says or thinks, but everybody

Enough! Introductions bore the reader and the writer simultaneously, the reader anxious to get on to the meat of the book, the writer at least as anxious to turn in his manuscript, pick up his check, and go out and get drunk. I'll end this now and permit us both to go our separate ways.

I love the French edition with its uncut pages. I would not want a reader too lazy to use a knife on me.

There are four basic emotions - mad, sad, glad and scared. And if you touch those emotions then you can grab your audience, your reader.