“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

Source: At Large and at Small: Familiar Essays

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "One of the convenient things about literature is that, despite copyrights […] a book belongs to the reader as well as t…" by Anne Fadiman?
Anne Fadiman photo
Anne Fadiman11
American essayist, journalist and magazine editor 1953

Related quotes

Steven Brust photo

“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

Source: The Paths of the Dead

Thomas Wolfe photo

“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

P. L. Travers photo

“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

As quoted in The New York Times (2 July 1978)

Vladimir Nabokov photo

“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

Source: Lectures on Literature (1980)

Samuel Johnson photo

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

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: Works of Samuel Johnson

Terry Pratchett photo

“While a book has got to be worthwhile from the point of view of the reader it's got to be worthwhile from the point of view of the writer as well.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

alt.fan.pratchett (1 December 1998) http://www.lspace.org/fandom/afp/timelines/discussions/is-pterry-going-downhill.html <br class="br">Usenet

Northrop Frye photo

“In literature you don't just read one poem or novel after another, but enter into a complete world of which every work of literature forms part. This affects the writer as much as it does the reader.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

The Educated Imagination (1963), Talk 3: Giants in Time

Jean Craighead George photo

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

Jean Craighead George book My Side of the Mountain

Source: My Side of the Mountain

“Books can truly change our lives: the lives of those who read them, the lives of those who write them. Readers and writers alike discover things they never knew about the world and about themselves.”

Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) American children's writer

Source: Time Cat

Octavio Paz photo

“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

Source: An Erotic Beyond: Sade

Related topics