Quotes About Readers

The only pressure I feel is to write good books. And to not replicate the previous book. Whether you have a thousand readers or a million readers it doesn't change the pressure. I never feel tempted to give the reader what I think the reader wants.

I think smart aggregation is a service to readers. And we do it, too ... . Whether it's a politics page and you want Dan Balz to tell you what is he reading, what does he think are the smartest articles today on the elections or the primaries. So, I think aggregation is great ... . So I'm all for aggregation. And the more eyeballs we can get to our content, the better. We do want readers to be educated and to understand the difference between, what is a source that you can trust as opposed to just rumors out there. And the difference between just repurposing content and not crediting it.

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

All readers are good readers, when they have the right book.

Along the way, about certain things, you realize, "I don't know anything about this." You think, "Is this going to sound ridiculous?" So I pestered more than a hundred different people over the course of the book. And when I finished the book I gave it to six or seven trusted readers, who are always the same, but I also gave it to a brother of mine who's a doctor and I asked him to read it, and he was very helpful. It's good to have a group of trusted readers. As my kids have grown up, they've joined this group.

I'm far more often annoyed than delighted by previous readers' marks in used books, so I assume that my notations will be equally annoying to future readers, and avoid making them.

I do believe that characters in novels belong to their writers and their readers pretty equally. I've learned a lot of things about the characters I write from people who read about them. Readers expand them in ways I don't think of and take them to places I can't go.

Rock and rollers can get you the youth buzz, and younger people are fanatical readers.

I think, above all, the characters in my novels feel universal to the readers.

Don't write down to your readers. The ones dumber than you can't read.

I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer - one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.

The world would be a very sad place if readers could only love one story.

It's no use telling us that something was 'mysterious' or 'loathsome' or 'awe-inspiring' or 'voluptuous.' By direct description, by metaphor and simile, by secretly evoking powerful associations, by offering the right stimuli to our nerves (in the right degree and the right order), and by the very beat and vowel-melody and length and brevity of your sentences, you must bring it about that we, we readers, not you, exclaim, 'how mysterious!' or 'loathsome' or whatever it is. Let me taste for myself, and you'll have no need to tell me how I should react.

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

I would like my readers to close the cover at the end and say, 'Wow, I never thought of it like that before'.

The best books come from someplace deep inside.... Become emotionally involved. If you don't care about your characters, your readers won't either.

An author describing the methods of intensive farming, or the excesses of sport hunting, or even the harsher uses of animals in science writes with confidence that most readers will share his sense of concern and indignation. Sounding the call to action-convincing people that change is not only necessary, but actually possible-is more problematic. In protecting animals from cruelty, it is always just one step from the mainstream to the fringe. To condemn the wrong is obvious, to suggest its abolition radical.

Readers must be given room to bring their own emotions to a piece so crammed with emotional content; the writer must tenaciously resist explaining why the material is so moving.

I come to writing the same way I come to teaching, which is that my goal is always to create life-long readers.

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

I have a lot of respect for readers because I'm a reader. That's how I got into writing.

Americans are curious about the texture of everyday life in the Middle East because they rarely get to see it. I wanted readers to feel like they were sitting around the dinner table with me and my friends, hearing what average people really say and really think, [where] the dinner table is the best place to find out.

The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than readers

Eva Stachniak has given readers a thrilling glimpse into the scandals and secrets at the heart of the Russian Imperial court. With deft prose and exquisite detail, Stachniak has resurrected one of the most compelling ages in history. Turn off the phones and lock the doors—you will not put it down.

I remember my fourth grade teacher reading 'Charlotte's Web' and 'Stuart Little' to us - both, of course, by E. B. White. His stories were genuinely funny, thought provoking and full of irony and charm. He didn't condescend to his readers, which was why I liked his books, and why I wasn't a big reader of other children's' books.

Ive been told by readers that they love how my heroes fall in love fast, first, and with conviction.

In any event, it's not exactly a secret to regular readers what my views on the war are

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

Regular readers will know I'm a fan of (Cristiano) Ronaldo, and an even bigger fan of the man who's assumed his mantle with quite astonishing success, Wayne Rooney. But Messi is on a higher plain than even that pair.

The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.

In a highly competitive newspaper market, every editor needs to appeal to female readers to boost their circulation.

Blogging has mostly been an opportunity to react more immediately to experiences to try out ideas that I may end up using in the print media or in some other place. When I write books, it's a way for me to bring readers into the experience of writing the book, all through the process of writing the books that I write. I talk about what I'm up to in the blog. I let people know what I am doing. To me, it's just part of putting my professional life up in a way that people who are interested in it can access; and learning things from them as well.

As the 2012 elections approach the finish line, the chatter among columnists and political reporters is about upcoming books that take readers inside the campaigns, cutting-edge efforts to micro-target voters on Internet social applications, the enormous money flowing through super-PACs, and extreme political polarization.

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?"?)

I probably coughed self-pityingly in response, little aware that I was about to cross a tremendous threshold beyond which there would be no return, that in my hands I held an object whose simple appearance belied its profound power. All true readers have a book, a moment, like the one I describe, and when Mum offered me that much-read library copy mine was upon me.

There is a neurologist, a woman over at Harvard who wanted me to come talk to them, and in France I have a lot of readers in the sciences. I can't tell you why.

There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small.

Perhaps I had better inform my Protestant readers that the famous Dogma of Papal Infallibility is by far the most modest pretension of the kind in existence. Compared with our infallible democracies, our infallible medical councils, our infallible astronomers, our infallible judges, and our infallible parliaments, the Pope is on his knees in the dust confessing his ignorance before the throne of God, asking only that as to certain historical matters on which he has clearly more sources of information open to him than anyone else his decision shall be taken as final.

There is no point in criticizing readers for migrating online. You have to follow them and offer them something new.

I have observed that vulgar readers almost always lose their veneration for the writings of the genius with whom they have had personal intercourse.

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

Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.

To me, the print business model is so simple, where readers pay a dollar for all the content within, and that supports the enterprise. The web model is just so much more complicated, and involves this third party of advertisers, and all these other sources of revenue that are sort of provisional, but haven't been proven yet.

Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.

When I was editor of the Erotic Review I fielded endless phone calls from elderly readers who thought I might like to pop round in my spare time and thrash them

One of my goals is to allow readers to see my characters and the world they inhabit as vividly as possible.

I think as readers we put ourselves in the protagonist's place because we want to be like that person. That's why sometimes we don't like protagonists who aren't all that nice; we want to relate to the protagonist.

The 250-page outline for American Tabloid. The books are so dense. They're so complex, you cannot write like I write off the top of your head. It's the combination of that meticulousness and the power of the prose and, I think, the depth of the characterizations and the risks that I've taken with language that give the books their clout. And that's where I get pissed off at a lot of my younger readers.