“A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.”

“A writer is, after all, only half his book. The other half is the reader and from the reader the writer learns.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

“Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader ("Good Readers and Good Writers", p. 3).”

Vladimir Nabokov book Lectures on Literature

“The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it.”

Thomas Wolfe (1900–1938) American writer

“Be you writer or reader, it is very pleasant to run away in a book.”

Jean Craighead George book My Side of the Mountain

“I don't believe that there are dangerous writers: the danger of certain books is not in the books themselves but in the passions of their readers.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

“When a long book succeeds, the writer and reader are not just having an affair; they are married.”

Stephen King book The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

“Only a generation of readers will spawn a generation of writers.”

Steven Spielberg (1946) American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur

“All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about what’s cool.”

Steven Brust (1955) American fantasy and science fiction author

“One of the convenient things about literature is that, despite copyrights […] a book belongs to the reader as well as to the writer.”

Anne Fadiman (1953) American essayist, journalist and magazine editor