Reader Quotes - Page 13

• Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment.

  Lynn Abbey

  Commitment, Writing, Two

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• Of course a poem is a two-way street. No poem is any good if it doesn't suggest to the reader things from his own mind and recollection that he will read into it, and will add to what the poet has suggested. But I do think poetry readings are very important.

  James Laughlin

  Reading, Thinking, Two

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• I do not think that a flight across the Atlantic will be made in our time, and in our time I include the youngest readers.

  Charles Rolls

  Thinking, Aviation, Flight

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• Noam Chomsky skittles and skithers all over the political landscape to distract the reader’s attention from the plain truth.

  Sidney Hook

  Political, Attention, Landscape

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• Naturally I drew register a little exaggerated, in order to create something new in the sense of a sublime literature that sings of despair only in order to oppress the reader, and make him desire the good as the remedy.

  Isidore Ducasse Lautreamont

  Order, Sublime, Despair

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• RHETORIC The art of making life less believable; the calculated use of language, not to alarm but to do full harm to our busy minds and properly dispose our listeners to a pain they have never dreamed of. The context of what can be known establishes that love and indifference are forms of language, but the wise addition of punctuation allows us to believe that there are other harms - the dash gives the reader the clear signal they are coming.

  Ben Marcus

  Wise, Art, Pain

  Ben Marcus (2013). “The Age of Wire and String”, p.92, Granta Books

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• I come from a family of great readers and storytellers.

  Katherine Dunn

  Storyteller

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• One of the saddest days of my life was when my mother told me Superman did not exist. I was like what do you mean he's not real. And she thought I was crying because it’s like Santa Claus is not real and I was crying because there was no one coming with enough power to save us.

  Geoffrey Canada

  Mom, Mother, Real

  "Waiting for 'Superman'". www.imdb.com. January 22, 2010.

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• The Genealogical Science is a wonderful account of how old-fashioned race science has come to be re-defined by resort to the most recent developments in genetics. But this book is not simply another story of the ideological uses to which science may be put. Nadia Abu El-Haj has provided the reader with a very detailed analysis of the historical entanglement between science and politics. Her study should be required reading for anyone interested in the sociology of science-and also for those dealing with Middle Eastern nationalisms. This is a work of outstanding value for scholarship.

  Talal Asad

  Book, Reading, Race

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• 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.

  Mary Oliver

  Trying, Together, Want

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• In Radical Optimism, Beatrice Bruteau sets forth a deep and shining vision of spirituality, one that guides the reader into the contemplative life and the very root of our being. Dr. Bruteau is a philosopher of great measure whose work should be required reading for all who seek the deepest truth about themselves.

  Sue Monk Kidd

  Reading, Roots, Contemplative Life

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

  James Ellroy

  Rocks, People, Buzz

  James Ellroy (2012). “Conversations with James Ellroy”, p.60, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Creator and reader are partners in the invisible creating something out of nothing, time and time again.

  Scott McCloud

  Creating, Invisible, Partners

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• Here is my challenge. Name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever. And here is my second challenge. Can any reader think of a wicked statement made, or an evil action performed, precisely because of religious faith? The second question is easy to answer, is it not? The first - I have been asking it for some time - awaits a convincing reply. By what right, then, do the faithful assume this irritating mantle of righteousness? They have as much to apologize for as to explain.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Faith, Religious, Thinking

  "An Atheist Responds" by Christopher Hitchens, www.washingtonpost.com. July 14, 2007.

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• I came up with new leads for game stories by being observant and clever, by using the many gifts of the English language to intrigue and hook a reader.

  Dick Schaap

  Clever, Games, Hook

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• Portraits of the Mind is a remarkable book that combines beautifully reproduced illustrations of the nervous system as it has been visualized over the centuries, as well as lively and authoritative commentaries by some of today's leading neuroscientists. It will be enjoyed by professionals and general readers alike.

  Dale Purves

  Book, Illustration, Mind

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• I believe my readers are crazy about their parents and want to be just like them when they grow up

  Caroline B. Cooney

  Growing Up, Crazy, Believe

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• If any of [my stories] succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained.

  M. R. James

  Writing, Fire, Dying

  M. R. James (2011). “Collected Ghost Stories”, p.406, OUP Oxford

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• Humor, for me, is really a gate of departure. Its a way of enticing a reader into a poem so that less funny things can take place later. It really is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.

  Billy Collins

  Mean, Funny Things, Departure

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• I had started off, before I ever got an acting job, working at Robert De Niro's Tribeca Productions as a reader. I was always interested in that side of the camera.

  Mira Sorvino

  Jobs, Two Sides, Acting

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• Social media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism, one-to-many, to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people and peers.

  Brian Solis

  Media, People, Peers

  Brian Solis (2010). “Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web”, p.37, John Wiley & Sons

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• Sometimes I write quickly, sometimes I spend several weeks on a single poem. I would really love for readers not to be able to guess which of the poems took so much work!

  Wislawa Szymborska

  Writing, Able, Sometimes

  "Alone with the Greta Garbo of verse". Interview with James Hopkin, www.theguardian.com. July 15, 2000.

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• An allegory is not meant to be taken literally. There is a great lack of comprehension on the part of some readers.

  Naguib Mahfouz

  Taken, Comprehension, Allegory

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• Emphasizing and rewarding length over quality results in worse writing and more reader abandonment.

  Marco Arment

  Writing, Quality, Abandonment

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• The characters in a children's book must reach into the heart of the reader on page one. Emotional content is the main reason a child and a parent will go back to a book again and again.

  Rosemary Wells

  Children, Book, Heart

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