Reader Quotes - Page 22

• There is in Albert Camus’ literary craftsmanship a seductive intelligence that could almost make a reader dismiss his philosophical intentions if he had not insisted on making them so clear.

  Aberjhani

  Philosophical, Seductive, Intention

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• Identify the moral dilemma driving the novel. the successful novel will haunt a reader because it deals with some ethical or moral dilemma that makes the reader wonder what he or she would do in the protagonist's place.

  Rick Riordan

  Successful, Moral, Driving

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

  Augusten Burroughs

  Want, Being True, Memoir

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• Whenever you have two characters in a book, whether it's a novel or nonfiction, you run the risk that the reader is going to like one more than the other. They're going to read one chapter and say, 'I can't wait to get back to the other guy.

  Mitch Albom

  Running, Book, Character

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• Tell the story that's in your heart, and don't hold back. Write a book the reader will want to melt into.

  Susan Wiggs

  Book, Writing, Heart

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• The love between a writer and a reader is never celebrated.

  Patricia Duncker

  Love Is

  Patricia Duncker (2017). “Hallucinating Foucault”, p.113, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Names generate meaning in a short amount of space — they provoke thoughts, questions. That's something I like doing. Of course, you have to be careful. Sometimes it can alienate the reader, it can be another level of mediation, to make a character carry the great burden of a metaphoric name. The character can be a device before he or she becomes a person, and that can be a bad thing for a writer who wants to offer up a kind of emotional proximity in the work. It's a constant struggle, the desire to be playful and the desire to communicate on some very stark emotional level.

  Joshua Ferris

  Struggle, Character, Emotional

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• Take my advice, dear reader, don’t talk epigrams even if you have the gift. I know, to those have, the temptation is almost irresistible. But resist it. Epigram and truth are rarely commensurate. Truth has to be somewhat chiselled, as it were, before it will quite fit into an epigram.

  Joseph P. Farrell

  Advice, Temptation, Fit

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• I like to blur the line between fact and fiction, but not to condescend to the reader by enmeshing her/him into some sort of a postmodern coop.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Fiction, Lines, Facts

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• A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Book, Reading, Air

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• It is no use describing a house; the reader will fix the scene in some spot he knows himself.

  J. Milton Hayes

  House, Scene, Spots

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• A writer often wants to change a reader’s perception about the world, which is a political act. But we have to work through character, so helping the reader to feel close to fictional characters is the gate through which we have to usher the reader.

  Caryl Phillips

  Reading, Writing, Character

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• The thing is, the reader doesn't want to hear about bad times.

  Davy Jones

  Want, Bad Times

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• Libraries' most powerful asset is the conversation they provide - between books and readers, between children and parents, between individuals and the collective world. Take them away and those voices turn inwards or vanish. Turns out that libraries have nothing at all to do with silence.

  Bella Bathurst

  Children, Powerful, Book

  "The secret life of libraries" by Bella Bathurst, www.theguardian.com. April 30, 2011.

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• I... recommend to every one of my Readers, the keeping a Journal of their Lives for one Week, and setting down punctually their whole Series of Employments during that Space of Time. This kind of Self-Examination would give them a true State of themselves, and incline them to consider seriously what they are about. One Day would rectifie the Omissions of another, and make a Man weigh all those indifferent Actions, which, though they are easily forgotten, must certainly be accounted for.

  Joseph Addison

  Men, Space, Omission

  Joseph Addison (1804). “The works of ... Joseph Addison, collected by mr. Tickell”, p.271

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• If the book is second-hand, I leave all its markings intact, the spoor of previous readers, fellow-travellers who have recorded their passage by means of scribbled comments, a name on the fly-leaf, a bus ticket to mark a certain page.

  Alberto Manguel

  Book, Reading, Mean

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• My readers, who may at first be apt to consider Quotation as downright pedantry, will be surprised when I assure them, that next to the simple imitation of sounds and gestures, Quotation is the most natural and most frequent habitude of human nature. For, Quotation must not be confined to passages adduced out of authors. He who cites the opinion, or remark, or saying of another, whether it has been written or spoken, is certainly one who quotes; and this we shall find to be universally practiced.

  James Boswell

  Simple, Next, Firsts

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• Some folks ask me what the transition was like from NASCAR reporter to political reporter. It's easy. In one, you try to explain to your readers the significance of grown-ups getting paid exorbitant amounts of money to go around in circles indefinitely, always turning left. In the other, you get to interview racecar drivers.

  Mary Katharine Ham

  Circles, Political, Trying

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• Take the time you need to learn the craft. Then sit down and write. When you hand over your completed manuscript to a trusted reader, keep an open mind. Edit, edit, and edit again. After you have written a great query letter, go to AgentQuery.com. This site is an invaluable resource that lists agents in your genre. Submit, accept rejection as part of the process, and submit again. And, of course, never give up.

  Kathleen Grissom

  Giving Up, Writing, Hands

  Kathleen Grissom (2014). “The Kitchen House: A Novel”, p.376, Simon and Schuster

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• Lord Chamberlain's readers or controllers, which were a handful of people working directly to him, were a very assorted group of people and some of them tried very hard to be as liberal as they could.

  Timothy West

  People, Groups, Lord

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• Leslie Stein's comics give readers privileged access to a complete and wholly original world of gently skewed wonders.

  Jim Woodring

  Giving, World, Wonder

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• You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don't labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers.

  Horace

  Art, Reading, Mean

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• The success of the poem is determined not by how much the poet felt in writing it, but by how much the reader feels in reading it.

  John Ciardi

  Reading, Writing, Poetry

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• The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn't deserve it, give it to him anyhow.

  John Ciardi

  Giving, Opinion, Honest

  John Ciardi (1963). “Dialogue with an audience”

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• An author is often obscure to the reader because they proceed from the thought to expression than like the reader from the expression to the thought.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Art, Writing, Expression

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