Reader Quotes - Page 16

• Im like the painter with his nose to the canvas, fussing over details. Gazing from a distance, the reader sees the big picture.

  Steven Saylor

  Distance, Details, Gazing

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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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• I think it's important to leave spaces in a story for readers to fill in from their own experience.

  Annie Proulx

  Writing, Thinking, Space

  "Annie Proulx regrets writing Brokeback Mountain? She needs to let it go" by Ryan Gilbey, www.theguardian.com. December 29, 2014.

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• You can solve most of your writing problems if you stop after every sentence and ask: what does the reader need to know next?

  William Zinsser

  Writing, Doe, Needs

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• I work on the assumption, or let it be the fear, that the reader will stop reading if I stop being interesting.

  Clive James

  Reading, Writing, Interesting

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• Way back in 1989, I got lucky with my first published story when it was selected for the Journey Prize anthology. Then I got lucky three more times. It is astounding to see how many writers published in the anthology have gone on to publish great story collections and novels. The anthology is a windfall for both writer and reader.

  David Bergen

  Journey, Lucky, Three

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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• Anybody who claims to read the entire paper every day is either the world's fastest reader or the world's biggest liar.

  Arthur Ochs Sulzberger

  Liars, Lying, World

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• Long fiction is wonderful and you can lose yourself in it as a reader and as a writer, but short stories don't allow the same kind of immersion. Often the best stories hold you back and make you witness them. This may be one of the reasons some people reject the form. That and the fact that they are harder work to read. A story will not let you get comfortable and settle in. It is like a stool that is so small that you must always be aware of sitting.

  Isobelle Carmody

  Writing, Long, People

  Isobelle Carmody, Nan McNab (2011). “The Wilful Eye (Tales from the Tower Volume One)”, p.3, Allen & Unwin

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• Books are something social - a writer speaking to a reader - so I think making the reading of a book the center of a social event, the meeting of a book club, is a brilliant idea.

  Yann Martel

  Book, Reading, Thinking

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• The fact must never be forgotten that no magazine publisher in the United States could give what it is giving to the reader each month if it were not for the revenue which the advertiser brings the magazine.

  Edward Bok

  Giving, Each Month, United States

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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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• Al Bernstein has seen cable television sports grow up. In 30 Years/30 Undeniable Truths he looks at his time in the industry through a prism that is unique to him. This book gives the reader an insight into the sometimes absurd world of television sports. There is a 31st undeniable truth: Al Bernstein is a truly funny man.

  Barry Tompkins

  Sports, Growing Up, Book

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• I'm quite a slow reader. It can take me quite a while to get though a book.

  Dakota Blue Richards

  Book, Take Me

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• Writing, at its best and truest, can offer solace and salvation for both readers and writers.

  Roxane Gay

  Writing, Salvation, Solace

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• In writing, the connection between storyteller and audience is just as important. By using some subtle devices, a narrator can reach out to the reader and say, 'We’re in this together.'

  Constance Hale

  Writing, Important, Together

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• A poem is a private story, after all, no matter how apparently public. The reader is always overhearing a confession.

  Jorie Graham

  Stories, Matter, Confession

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• It is that the Mail constantly dares to stand up to the liberal-left consensus that dominates so many areas of British life and instead represents the views of the ordinary people who are our readers and who don't have a voice in today's political landscape and are too often ignored by today's ruling elite.

  Paul Dacre

  Voice, Views, People

  "Why is the left obsessed by the Daily Mail?". www.theguardian.com. October 12, 2013.

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• The writer has the advantage of a medium that can be contemplated many times over on the pages of a book or a magazine. The words lie on the page and the writer has an extended opportunity to imprint on his reader every meaning and nuance distilled from experience.

  Bienvenido Lumbera

  Lying, Book, Opportunity

  Bienvenido Lumbera (1984). “Revaluation: essays on Philippine literature, cinema, and popular culture”

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