Reader Quotes

A new reader shouldn't be able to find you in your work, though someone who's read more may begin to.

The reader of these Memoirs will discover that I never had any fixed aim before my eyes, and that my system, if it can be called a system, has been to glide away unconcernedly on the stream of life, trusting to the wind wherever it led.

When a writer becomes a reader of his or her own work, a lot can go wrong. It's like do-it-yourself dentistry.

At the same time, I think books create a sort of network in the reader's mind, with one book reinforcing another. Some books form relationships. Other books stand in opposition. No two writers or readers have the same pattern of interaction.

The bottom line always remains the same: What is the basic humanity of the character? How do I make them resonate with the reader?

Almost all novels are improved by cutting from the top. On their first pages, authors parade those favourite effects which disgust the impartial reader.

We're not keen on the idea of the story sharing its valence with the reader. But the reader's own life "outside" the story changes the story.

A reader ought to be able to hold it and become familiar with its organized contents and make it a mind's manageable companion.

Too many ads that try not to go over the reader's head end up beneath his notice.

I'd been a thriller reader all my life.

In a manner of speaking, the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poem says apart from the words of the poem.

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.

Usually, when people get to the end of a chapter, they close the book and go to sleep. I deliberately write a book so when the reader gets to the end of the chapter, he or she must turn one more page.

If poetry alters the way in which the reader views the world, then it has had its desired effect.

Almost anything is too much. I am trying in my poems to have the reader be the experiencer. I do not want to be there. It is not even a walk we take together.

That's why editors and publishers will never be obsolete: a reader wants someone with taste and authority to point them in the direction of the good stuff, and to keep the awful stuff away from their door.

The pleasure a reader gets is often equal to the pleasure a writer is given.

In a sense, there's a great truth to that, but, also I was a great reader.

When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you. What I want is to have the reader come out just 6 percent more awake to the world.

But I care about the reader, and I'm trying to keep the reader's attention for as long as I can.

Whenever I write, I'm always thinking of the reader.

Before I'm a writer, I'm definitely a reader and when I read memoir, I really want it to be true.

A great reader seldom recognizes his solitude.

I wasn't a very discriminating reader. I read just about everything that came along.

I do have to earn a living, so I'm conscious of probable reactions from readers, but the most important one is still the awareness that if I'm not enjoying a story, the reader won't either.

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.

If you know what you're talking about, or if you feel that you do, the reader will believe you.

I think there's no excuse for the American poetry reader not knowing a good deal about what is going on in the rest of the world.

It has always been something I could do, and it may seem odd that in my case I seem to create an interesting narrative and frustrate the reader's opportunities to follow it at every step.

I have great faith in the intelligence of the American viewer and reader to put two and two together and come up with four.