Quotes About Understanding

I'm an insomniac, so my perfect reader is probably another insomniac.

Empathy is not as complicated when you have some aspects in common with your character; it's not impossible to know someone who's like you in many ways but different in one. This is true especially if you are a reader. Reading makes you accustomed to inhabiting other lives and sensibilities.

I want to earn a reader's capacity to be moved.

If your depiction of loss doesn't make the reader feel loss, then you didn't depict it right.

An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers.

This is the point being missed by readers who lament Liquor's lack of hot sex scenes, probably because they aren't old enough to understand that a passionate relationship could be about anything other than sex.

Everything I publish is for my readers.

Our poems will have failed if our readers are not brought by them beyond the poems.

For me it's more important that I outline all the facets of a controversial issue and let the reader make up his or her mind. I don't care if readers change their minds, but I would like readers to ask themselves why their opinion is what it is.

Readers are made by readers - it is so obvious it is almost banal to say it.

A lot of readers want characters to behave in a responsible way, or they want to understand the characters' dilemma and act, in a way, on their behalf.

I wanted to give readers the feeling of knowing the characters, a mental image.

One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.

A book, like a landscape, is a state of consciousness varying with readers.

There are readers who want every point to be clearly and unambiguously set forth, and there are those who want to pry ideas and meanings out for themselves.

Some readers allow their prejudices to blind them. A good reader knows how to disregard inappropriate responses.

Children's authors don't talk down or patronise their younger readers.

The best thing about being a writer is it gives you readers who understand your deepest feelings and fears.

If I use the word 'khichdi' in my novel, I don't have to get into the trouble of explaining that it is a dish of rice and lentils. My Indian readers know it.

We don't need to dumb down our stuff. And it's important to know how far we can push readers.

What I would not like is to be ignored. I write from the heart. I don't write for me. I write for my readers.

Readers let me know that they like books that have more to them than meets the eye. Had they not let me know that, I never would have written 'The View From Saturday.'

Readers, like writers, are essentially amoral. Arm's length will never do. We want to get closer.

I'm not interested in forcing my beliefs on my readers.