Quotes About Readers

Even if I only had 10 readers, I'd rather do the book for them than for a million readers online.

It is possible to argue that the really influential book is not that which converts ten millions of casual readers, but rather that which converts the very few who, at any given moment, succeed in seizing power. Marx and Sorel have been influential in the modern world, not so much because they were best-sellers (Sorel in particular was not at all a widely read author), but because among their few readers were two men, called respectively Lenin and Mussolini.

I want the kind of readers who remain children at any cost. I can tell them at a glance: loyalty to that first enchantment guards better than any cosmetic; than any diet, against the insults of age. But alas for such readers, who would huddle safe and sound in the asylum of their credulous enchantment as if in the womb-our enervating century offends them by its chaos, its fidgets of light and space, the host of its excuses for dividing , for rending oneself from others and from oneself.

People will ask me, "How do you approach writing books for young readers differently than for adults?" My answer is always: I don't change anything about the story itself. I'm going to tell kids the way things really were. What I don't do - and this is the only thing I do differently in writing for kids - is that I don't revel in the gory details. I allow readers to fill in the details as necessary. But I don’t force kids to have to digest something they’re not mature enough or ready for yet. If they are, they can fill in the details even better than I could, just with their imaginations.

I do open endings on purpose. I expect a lot from my readers. I want them to do much of the work, because I believe that the story is built by the reader, not by the writer. I like having an open ending to a standalone fantasy, because it allows a continuing story to be written in the hearts of the readers.

There are infimal readers, readers who want to read the same book over and over, but will never read the same book twice.

The future of publishing is about having connections to readers and the knowledge of what those readers want.

I am persuaded that foolish writers and foolish readers are created for each other; and that fortune provides readers as she does mates for ugly women.

There is nothing like Integral Dreaming in the literature. This is an ambitious undertaking and its readers will gain an in-depth understanding of dreams and dreaming that they will find nowhere else. The ‘five movements’ of Integral Dream Practice will encourage many readers to follow the steps outlined, and integrate dreamwork into their own lives. This book will be an instant classic in the field.

I myself discovered many authors through school reading lists and through school anthologies. The positives are: young readers can find the world opening up to them through books they study. The negatives may include bad experiences kids have - if they don't like the book or the teacher, or the way the book is taught.

To grow, to become spiritually alive, and vibrant, you really have to struggle. Without struggle, you do not move at all...I would appreciate it if readers who come to my work would try very, very, very hard not to think narrowly as we are taught to think in America.

I report when science clashes with the Bible story and when it reinforces it. Then I let the readers chew on it. As followers of Jesus and students of the Bible, what we're looking for is the truth. We find it by grappling with the facts. And when the truth remains a mystery that our facts can't solve, we live with it. We hold loosely to our waffling knowledge and tightly to Jesus.

Southern writing is regional: it includes dialect, settings, and cultural traditions from that region. However the themes and story conflicts are universal. My challenge is to write regional fiction without falling into the trap of nostalgia. There are important issues facing the south that I believe should be raised in the stories to make them contemporary, believable, and relevant to today's readers.

I would give them (aspiring writers) the oldest advice in the craft: Read and write. Read a lot. Read new authors and established ones, read people whose work is in the same vein as yours and those whose genre is totally different. You've heard of chain-smokers. Writers, especially beginners, need to be chain-readers. And lastly, write every day. Write about things that get under your skin and keep you up at night.

I think of every book as a single entity, and some have later gone on to become a series, often at the request of readers.

I like to think I'm generally accessible, but I give readers the benefit of the doubt of being reasonably culturally-literate.

Crassly put: When I write, I am trying not to bore myself and my readers.

The decision to write in prose instead of poetry is made more by the readers than by writers. Almost no one is interested in reading narrative in verse.

Probably all of us, writers and readers alike, set out into exile, or at least into a certain kind of exile, when we leave childhood behind...The immigrant, the nomad, the traveler, the sleepwalker all exist, but not the exile, since every writer becomes an exile simply by venturing into literature, and every reader becomes an exile simply by opening a book.

Those were the days in this country where H. G. Wells, Bernard Shaw and Conan Doyle could have influence, and thats gone, thats true. But I dont think we have less influence in the hearts and minds of readers. I think, if anything, we have just as much, if not more.

I think about the collaboration between writers and readers, but I also think about the collaboration between all the writers in a generation or in a country or across time contributing to this massive project of documenting and reimagining our world.

Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.

Readers of novels are a strange folk, upon whose probable or even possible tastes no wise book-maker would ever venture to bet.

Fiction supplies the only philosophy that may readers know; it establishes their ethical, social, and material standards; it confirms them in their prejudices or opens their minds to a wider world.

Readers will share in the environs of the author and her characters, be taken into the hardship of a pitiless place and emerge on the other side — wiser, warier and weathered like the landscape.

I cannot, will not, withhold from my young readers the harsh realities of human hunger and suffering and loss, but neither will I neglect to plant that stubborn seed of hope that has enabled our race to outlast wars and famines and the destruction of death.

The storyteller and poet of our time, as in any other time, must be an entertainer of the spirit in the full sense of the word, not just a preacher of social or political ideals. There is no paradise for bored readers and no excuse for tedious literature that does not intrigue the reader, uplift him, give him the joy and the escape that true art always grants.

When I started, there was more of a cultural assumption that many readers would find gay characters irrelevant or repugnant.

But as I wrote the book [Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet], I tried to write it as clearly and directly and passionately as possible just thinking of communicating to readers who might want to learn about this great thinker and be inspired by him as I was.

That'd be just what I need: a rash of car thefts across America, committed by dedicated readers.

When the BBC decided to bring Doctor Who back as a feature film a few years ago, one national newspaper ran a poll to ask its readers who should be the new Doctor, and I topped it.

It is not all books that are as dull as their readers.

Effective readers, even at their earliest levels, read in five to seven word phrases rather than word by word.

Readers have a loyalty that cannot be matched anywhere else in the creative arts, which explains why so many writers who have run out of gas can keep coasting anyway, propelled on to the bestseller lists by the magic words AUTHOR OF on the covers of their books.

Miss Havisham is a glitch in the smooth functioning of the Patriarchy, enforcing awareness of a moment of social disaster and personal shame, something it seems she would want us to forget (but no one would forget). (Maybe an interesting "discussion question" for readers of Complicated Grief might be, "What do Terry Barton and Miss Havisham have in common?"?)

The people who encouraged me weren't necessarily writers or readers themselves. They were people who were just pleased to see me devote my life to reading and writing.

Writers of novels and romance in general bring a double loss to their readers; robbing them of their time and money; representing men, manners, and things, that never have been, or are likely to be.

I do bookstore signings, and it seems to me that I get a variety of men and women, more women than I'd expect, and grown-ups among my readers.

Only a generation of readers will span a generation of writers.

The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. It is said that leaders are readers. However if they read trashy magazines for the majority of their time and they never run with the information that they glean from resourceful books, then they may as well have not taken any time to read at all. It is easier to stay out than get out.

No other serial publications carry a number on them that is of any weight to their readership. The number is there to serve a function, but it has no intrinsic value in and of itself. It's comfort food and nostalgia at best. On this, we follow what you and your fellow readers do more than what you say. We hear complaints about renumbering every time we do it, but every time we do it it results in higher sales, which is the whole ballgame - so if it were your time and your effort, what would you do?

I can't promise that every child with learning differences will become a novelist, but I do think all children can become lifelong readers.

Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder have created a compelling vision for a Clean Tech Nation and a roadmap for creating it, even as they surprise and delight readers with a rich account of progress already achieved. I salute their unique combination of technical savvy, practical sense, and imperishable enthusiasm.

I did not know at first that it would be a series; I discovered after the first novel that I had more to say about it, so I did another. And another, and then the readers demanded yet more.

As sculptors chip away the stone in order to find the statue, writers chip away extraneous verbiage so readers can see the shape of an idea clearly. My gift is to see through the confusion, to bring order and simplicity to a story.

I've been thinking so much about writing as a gift to readers - and how newness of subject (place or topic or person) is one of the biggest gifts at our disposal.

As a rule, I don't worry about genre. I just want to tell a good story, with characters that interest me and my readers.

As readers can probably tell from my books, I love the outdoors.