Reader Quotes - Page 12

If you’re a writer, your first duty, a duty you owe to yourself and your readers, and to your writing itself, is to become wonderful. To become the best writer you can possibly be.

Theodora Goss

Writing, Firsts, Wonderful

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With humor, it’s so subjective that trying to think of what the ideal reader would think would drive you crazy.

Calvin Trillin

Crazy, Thinking, Trying

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I like the idea of a big caesura between the narratives, a space which readers can fill in with their own speculative history.

Jonathan Coe

Ideas, Space, Narrative

"Likely lads' return" by Tim Adams, www.theguardian.com. August 21, 2004.

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

Jim Lehrer

Two, Together, Literature

"Jim Lehrer on Billy Bob, Reports of Rain and Stenography As Journalism". Interview with Liz Cox Barrett, www.cjr.org. June 2, 2006.

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I was not a big comic-book reader.

Brad Bird

Book, Comic, Bigs

"We Shine the Spotlight on ARROW Star Grant Gustin". Interview with Tiffany Vogt, www.thetvaddict.com. January 15, 2014.

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My goal is to teach readers how to treat and respect themselves and each other in an entertaining way. I do that in all of my books.

Lisi Harrison

Book, Goal, Way

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The surest way to arouse and hold the attention of the reader is by being specific, definitive, and concrete. The greatest writers - Homer, Dante, Shakespeare - are effective largely because they deal in particulars and report the details that matter. Their words call up pictures.

William Strunk, Jr.

Writing, Details, Attention

"The Elements of Style". Book by William Strunk Jr. Chapter II: "Elementary Principles of Composition", 1918.

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To read great books does not mean one becomes ‘bookish’; it means that something of the terrible insight of Dostoyevsky, of the richly-charged imagination of Shakespeare, of the luminous wisdom of Goethe, actually passes into the personality of the reader; so that in contact with the chaos of ordinary life certain free and flowing outlines emerge, like the forms of some classic picture, endowing both people and things with a grandeur beyond what is visible to the superficial glance.

John Cowper Powys

Book, Mean, People

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No one ever became, or can become truly eloquent without being a reader of the Bible, and an admirer of the purity and sublimity of its language.

Fisher Ames

Language, Purity, Admirer

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While cities are distinguished by their architecture and physical appearance, Bell and de-Shalit make a compelling case that many major world cities--and their inhabitants--also express their own distinctive ethos or values. The Spirit of Cities takes the reader on a wide-ranging and lively personal journey.

Witold Rybczynski

Journey, Ethos, Cities

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Exploring Ecclesiology is true to its subtitle, being both vibrantly evangelical and admirably ecumenical; it is commendable for its depth, breadth, and erudition. Harper and Metzger's sympathetic engagement with Catholic ecclesiology is challenging and reciprocal. I especially appreciate how the authors emphasize and explore the vital connection between ecclesiology and eschatology, something very beneficial to readers seeking to better appreciate how living the Faith in community today relates to the hope of entering fully into Trinitarian communion in the life to come.

Carl E. Olson

Appreciate, Community, Catholic

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Pulitzer's Gold is a goldmine of inspiration for both journalists and non-journalists. Those in the newspaper business, who now find themselves obsessing about staff cutbacks and circulation declines, should embrace this book as a reminder of the highest ideals, and the absolute thrills, to be found in their profession. As for regular readers, Pulitzer's Gold offers marvelous storytelling, real-life adventures, and absolute proof that journalism can change our world for the better.

Jeffrey Zaslow

Real, Book, Inspiration

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Wright and Cowen, who have separately written important scholarly works on the financial history of the early republic, here repackage their research for readers of popular history, and do so impressively.

David Liss

Important, Research, Republic

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Readers will stand up and cheer for Karen Fox's Prince of Charming! Finally, a heroine who's a real woman. Finally, a hero who knows what a rare find she is! Finally, a book for us all to adore! Thank you Karen Fox for creating the most lovable hero romance has seen in a long, long time!

Maggie Shayne

Cheer, Real, Book

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Once we know the plot and its surprises, we can appreciate a book's artistry without the usual confusion and sap flow of emotion, content to follow the action with tenderness and interest, all passion spent. Rather than surrender to the story or the characters - as a good first reader ought - we can now look at how the book works, and instead of swooning over it like a besotted lover begin to appreciate its intricacy and craftmanship. Surprisingly, such dissection doesn't murder the experience. Just the opposite: Only then does a work of art fully live.

Michael Dirda

Art, Book, Passion

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Literature for me… tries to heal the harm done by stories. (How much harm? Most of the atrocities of history have been created by stories, e.g., the Jews killed Jesus.) I follow Sartre that the freedom the author claims for herself must be shared with the reader. So that would mean that literature is stories that put themselves at the disposal of readers who want to heal themselves. Their healing power lies in their honesty, the freshness of their vision, the new and unexpected things they show, the increase in power and responsibility they give the reader.

Geoff Ryman

Jesus, Honesty, Lying

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How often I have tried to tell writing students that the first thing a writer must do is love the reader and wish the reader well. The writer must trust the reader to be at least as intelligent as he is. Only in such well wishing and trust, only when the writer feels he is writing a letter to a good friend, only then will the magic happen.

Ellen Gilchrist

Writing, Good Friend, Intelligent

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Interest is never enough. If it doesn't haunt you, you'll never write it well. What haunts and obsesses you may, with luck and labour, interest your readers. What merely interests you is sure to bore them.

Steven Heighton

Writing, Luck, May

"Workbook: Memos and Dispatches On Writing". Book by Steven Heighton, 2011.

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Victoria Roberts spins an exciting Highland tale of intrigue, betrayal, and love with a braw Highland hero and strong English heroine any reader will love.

Hannah Howell

Strong, Betrayal, Hero

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Lansens is a willing storyteller.... As a writer, she desires a particular kind of reader, one who wants above all to be transported--who might sit at her knee, the hearth.

Noah Richler

Heart, Desire, Want

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Finally, I owe a debt to all the writers who've worked in the Star Wars universe to date - and to the millions of readers who've supported their works. The stories we love may not always fit neatly into a single timeline, but they will always matter.

John Jackson Miller

Stars, War, Stories

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Reading is, at its best, not an escape; it is genuine experience. A novel is not a monologue, but a conversation, a collaboration between writer and reader, an invaluable exchange of human conditions.

Jonathan Evison

Reading, Collaboration, Genuine

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When my father first took me to Ennis Library I went down among the shelves and felt company, not only the company of writers, but the readers too, because they had lifted and opened and read these books. The books were worn in a way they can only get worn by hands and eyes and minds

Niall Williams

Father, Book, Eye

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What a writer brought to a book didn't matter as much as what the reader contributed.

Lisa Morton

Book, Matter

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Mad, malevolent, and incantatory, The Orphan Palace reads like the hagridden fever dream of one who has not only stared the Abyss in Its black and fathomless face, but welcomed Its gaze in return . . . and become Its living embodiment. It is a journey to be taken by none but the bravest of readers, and by souls with an ardent desire to savor their own damnation.

Robin Spriggs

Dream, Taken, Journey

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