“Nobody reads a book to get to the middle.”

— Mickey Spillane

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Mickey Spillane 59

American writer 1918–2006

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“Nobody reads a mystery to get to the middle. They read it to get to the end. If it's a letdown, they won't buy anymore. The first page sells that book. The last page sells your next book.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

Writers on Writing interview (1986)

“Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

As quoted in "Literary Censorship in England" in Current Opinion, Vol. 55, No. 5 (November 1913), p. 378; this has sometimes appeared on the internet in paraphrased form as "Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads"
1910s
Context: Any public committee man who tries to pack the moral cards in the interest of his own notions is guilty of corruption and impertinence. The business of a public library is not to supply the public with the books the committee thinks good for the public, but to supply the public with the books the public wants. … Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody can read. But as the ratepayer is mostly a coward and a fool in these difficult matters, and the committee is quite sure that it can succeed where the Roman Catholic Church has made its index expurgatorius the laughing-stock of the world, censorship will rage until it reduces itself to absurdity; and even then the best books will be in danger still.

“The books that everybody admires are those that nobody reads.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

“In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated (1894)

“Just like heaven. Ever’body wants a little piece of lan’. I read plenty of books out here. Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It’s just in their head. They’re all the time talkin’ about it, but it’s jus’ in their head.”

John Steinbeck Of Mice and Men

Source: Of Mice and Men

“Werner, nobody will read this book if I don't write bad stuff about you. If I wrote that we get along well together, nobody would buy it. The scum only wants to hear about the dirt, all the time.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

As quoted by Werner Herzog, in My Best Fiend, (1999)

“But it is impossible, I find, to tidy books without ending by sitting on the floor in the middle of a great untidiness and reading.”

Elizabeth von Arnim book In the Mountains

Source: In the Mountains

“I read a book twice as fast as anybody else. First, I read the beginning, and then I read the ending, and then I start in the middle and read toward whatever end I like best.”

Gracie Allen (1902–1964) American actress and comedienne

As quoted in Funny Ladies : The Best Humor from America's Funniest Women (2001) by Bill Adler, p. 51

“Take a book, the poorest one written, but read it with the passion that it is the only book you will read-ultimately you will read everything out of it, that is, as much as there was in yourself, and you could never get more out of reading, even if you read the best of books.”

Sören Kierkegaard book Stages on Life's Way

Stages on Life's Way, 1845 p. 363-364
1840s, Stages on Life's Way (1845)

“Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if they open it and read it, they don't have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don't have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or sold, or bought, or read.”

Philip Pullman book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ3VcbAfd4w
The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (2010)

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