Reader Quotes - Page 8

• 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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• As writers we must, from our very opening sentence, speak with authority to our readers.

  Michael Cunningham

  Speak, Authority, Opening

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• Who knows why some words ignite the hearts of some readers while others are like wet matches that won't light.

  Phil Cousineau

  Heart, Light, Ignite

  Phil Cousineau (2008). “Stoking the Creative Fires: 9 Ways to Rekindle Passion and Imagination”, p.12, Conari Press

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• The novel as a form is usually seen to be moral if its readers consider freedom, individuality, democracy, privacy, social connection, tolerance and hope to be morally good, but it is not considered moral if the highest values of a society are adherence to rules and traditional mores, the maintenance of hierarchical relationships, and absolute ideas of right and wrong. Any society based on the latter will find novels inherently immoral and subversive.

  Jane Smiley

  Ideas, Tolerance, Individuality

  Jane Smiley (2014). “Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel”, p.129, Faber & Faber

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• I suppose, I hoped, by setting a particularly brutal ancient rite in the present and in my own village to shock the story's readers with a graphic dramatization of the pointless violence and general inhumanity in their own lives.

  Shirley Jackson

  Stories, Village, Violence

  Shirley Jackson (2008). “The Lottery”, p.22, The Creative Company

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• Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews

  John Hagee

  Catholic, Church, Records

  John Hagee (2006). “Jerusalem Countdown”, p.114, Charisma Media

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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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• Jerel Law has crafted a fantastic story that will leave every reader wanting more. Stop looking for the next great read in fantasy fiction for young readers-you've found it!

  Robert Liparulo

  Law, Fiction, Stories

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• The trick is to realize that one is not important, except insofar as one’s example can serve to elucidate a more widespread human trait and make readers feel a little less lonely and freakish.

  Phillip Lopate

  Lonely, Important, Example

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• A map in the hands of a pilot is a testimony of a man's faith in other men; it is a symbol of confidence and trust. It is not like a printed page that bears mere words, ambiguous and artful, and whose most believing reader - even whose author, perhaps - must allow in his mind a recess for doubt. A map says to you, 'Read me carefully, follow me closely, doubt me not.' It says, 'I am the earth in the palm of your hand. Without me, you are alone and lost.

  Beryl Markham

  Believe, Men, Hands

  Beryl Markham (2012). “West with the Night”, p.272, Open Road Media

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• Sara Creasy is a new writer to watch, and Song of Scarabaeus is a novel to read and enjoy. . . . The biological speculation rings with truth and possibility, the terraforming-gone-wrong creates an environment of delicious creepiness, and Creasy's imaginatively-constructed universe draws the reader in, to follow Edie and Finn's quest for freedom.

  Vonda N. McIntyre

  Song, Watches, Gone

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

  Katherine Dunn

  Storyteller

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• In my opinion, trying to guess what readers want is the wrong approach. You have to tell your story as best you can and as true to yourself as possible. You have to be honest and fair and vulnerable and foolish and brave, and not care what anyone thinks of it.

  Jeannette Walls

  Writing, Thinking, Brave

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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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• 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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• The comments I most appreciate come from ordinary readers who've happened on one of my books at some time of stress in their lives, and who actually credit the book with helping them through a bad time. It's happened a few times in forty years.

  Fred Saberhagen

  Stress, Book, Years

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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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• I was just as voracious a writer as I was a reader.

  Iris Johansen

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• If you would be a writer, first be a reader

  Allan W. Eckert

  Would Be, Firsts, Ifs

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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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• 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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• Gary Burnetts office is shelved with theological books, guitars fill the floor, and the drawers are crammed with CDs. In The Gospel According to the Blues, Gary brings his vocation as a New Testament teacher together with his passion for the blues and gives the reader scholarly knowledge and wise insight.

  Steve Stockman

  Wise, Teacher, Book

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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 concentrate on the lives of individuals whom the reader comes to know and feel with intimately.

  Helen Dunmore

  Individual, Feels, Knows

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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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