Quotes about reader
page 10

“I think TV series, games, and general media have changed the way we tell stories. But books will remain. Technology has changed all the others arts: painting, theater, dancing, cinema, music. But literature is an absolutely intimate process between the writer’s voice and the reader’s mind, it is something so natural and strong that the only thing that technology could change is its support, its format, for example, if we read from a book or from an e-reader. But that doesn’t change the heart of literature.”

Samanta Schweblin (1978) Argentine writer

On the staying power of literature in “Samanta Schweblin on Revealing Darkness Through Fiction” https://lithub.com/samanta-schweblin-on-revealing-darkness-through-fiction/ in LitHub (2017 Jan 12)

Books, Art, Music, Way

“From a young age, I was instinctively drawn to stories of escape, adventure and the high seas. It wasn’t just that I was living in a society where I felt trapped, it was also because I was a reader and a dreamer. In retrospect, no matter where I grew up I probably would have dreamt of escape. But the fact that we were living behind the iron curtain fuelled that escapism.”

Kapka Kassabova (1973) author

On her need to escape even at a young age in “THE SRB INTERVIEW: Kapka Kassabova” https://www.scottishreviewofbooks.org/free-content/the-srb-interview-kapka-kassabova/ in Scottish Review of Books (2018 Feb 10)

Age, Sea

“The streak of rationality and questioning tradition too came early to him. Once a multicoloured book on the shelf at home caught his attention and he decided to read it, despite it being in Sanskrit, of which he understood very little. When Damodarpant discovered that his young son was reading the Aranyaka s he was enraged. There was a superstition that reading the Aranyaka s at home forebodes evil for the reader’s worldly life and they needed to be read in seclusion in the woods. This left a lasting question in Vinayak’s mind. How could someone as intelligent as his father believe in such superstitions?, he wondered. Mocking the belief, he continued reading the book without anyone’s knowledge and proved to himself that this was just a fanciful and concocted tale.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past

Life, Books, Home, Intelligence

“The character doesn’t have to be exactly like them, but as an author you have to give something to the reader that shows the vulnerability and where the character’s coming from…You can have characters do awful things, but you make them relatable or have some kind of backstory that makes their actions, even if it’s not excusable, understandable…”

Maurene Goo

On what makes a great character “Maurene Goo on Writing Relatable Characters and her Enduring Love of K Dramas” http://publiclibrariesonline.org/2018/02/goo/ (Public Libraries Online; 2018 Feb 28)

Making love, Understanding, Relation ships

“You’re always, as a journalist, walking this fine line between faithfully representing the complexity of the thing you’re writing about and retaining your readers. The finest piece of journalism in the world is of no use if no one reads it. And getting people to read it requires compromises and sacrifices and all kinds of things. It is very hard to get it perfectly right. But I feel like over time, most good journalists, I think, do a pretty good job of balancing those things…”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

On the challenges of a journalist writing a book in “Malcolm Gladwell on Talking to Strangers and how podcasting changed his approach to writing” https://ew.com/books/2019/09/09/malcolm-gladwell-talking-to-strangers-interview/ in EW (2019 Sep 9)

People, World, Feeling, Thinking

“A play is an ever-changing dynamic theatrical experience. Every director, cast, design team, audience and reader bring new life to a piece of dramatic literature. A play is not a fixed expression, but a revelation in a particular moment in time.”

Carmen Rivera (1964) American playwright

On her concept of plays in “Carmen Rivera” https://www.newschool.edu/drama/faculty/carmen-rivera/ (The New School Drama)

Life, Literature, Change, Time

“If you tell stories about a really cool kid that you can relate to, and then you hear about kids being mean to that kid, then you feel what it is like to walk in his shoes. And you think, that is not right. I think the best way to write is to want to build empathy for your characters. You want the readers to feel the things they are feeling.”

R. J. Palacio (1963) American author

On thinking about kids who are different in “Author R.J. Palacio talks to LI kids” https://www.newsday.com/lifestyle/family/kidsday/rj-palacio-wonder-author-interview-1.20364470 in Newsday (2018 Aug 8)

Shoe, Way, Feeling, Thinking

“Turning those revelations into art was a whole other thing…I did it, though — and that helped me realize my power, beyond the pain. Being able to illustrate those experiences for readers was a triumph, because it took everything to resist all the urges I have as a human being to present myself as good, or healed, or undamaged. I had to work against myself to make the memoir, and I ended up more empowered than I ever thought I could be.”

Terese Marie Mailhot (1983) First Nation Canadian writer, journalist, memoirist, teacher

On writing about her ordeals in “Why 'Heart Berries' Author Terese Marie Mailhot Doesn't Use The Word ‘Resilient’" https://www.bustle.com/p/why-heart-berries-author-terese-marie-mailhot-doesnt-use-the-word-resilient-8134108 in Bustle Magazine (2018 Feb 7)

Pain, Making love, Art, Help

“The relationship between reader and writer in fiction is steeped in vulnerabilities. It really does require trust and faith because some books have the power to transform people. You feel like you can never go back, look at the world in the same way again. And that grand ambition is what I hope to do with my books because at the heart of my writing is a passion for telling stories of the oppressed, the marginalized, and the misunderstood.”

Randa Abdel-Fattah (1979) contemporary Australian writer of novels for young adults

On being a writer in “Both Freedom and Constraint: An Interview with Randa Abdel-Fattah” https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/both-freedom-and-constraint-an-interview-with in Words Without Borders (May 2015)

People, Books, World, Faith

“As writers, of course we’re interested in human beings, human stories, human trauma, and all that is very compelling for readers. But when we write these powerful stories about individual people, we have the illusion that we’ve made a difference. And of course we have—people read the books, they’re touched emotionally by these kinds of stories, and that’s great. But to the extent that the stories that we’re telling are about people who are weaker, in some way—they come from a small country, or a forcibly removed population, they’re underrepresented collectively—individual stories don’t change the conditions that produce those refugees in the first place…”

Viet Thanh Nguyen (1971) American author of fiction

On writers overestimating the difference that their writings make in “An interview with Viet Thanh Nguyen” https://www.asymptotejournal.com/interview/an-interview-with-viet-thanh-nguyen/ in Asymptote Magazine

People, Books, Way, Change

“I’ve never considered myself a strong reader or writer. When I was younger, I had some hardships with reading and writing, and I never thought of myself as someone who could pull this off. To a degree it was challenging. In my everyday life, I’m pretty private and reserved, so the hardest part was taking personal emotion and putting it on the page and putting myself out there…”

Ian Purkayastha (1992)

On writing his book Truffle Boy in “Ian Purkayastha: How I Write” https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/author-interviews/ian-purkayastha-write/ in The Writer (2017 Aug 7)

Life, Strong, Reading, Parting

“I love the short story: I love its flexibility, its distillation of language, the pressure it exerts on the moment. A story demands that the reader look closely. And yet, despite the intensity and constraints, a story can be surprisingly capacious…”

Kirstin Valdez Quade American writer

On why she loves writing short stories in “Kirstin Valdez Quade: How I Write” https://www.writermag.com/writing-inspiration/author-interviews/kirstin-valdez-quade/ in The Writer (2017 Apr 21)

Love, Making love

“I succeeded in making you care. If you feel nothing, I failed you as a storyteller. I love happy endings, but some readers need the darker stories, too. The stories that don’t make them feel disturbed by their own reality because it doesn’t reflect what they’re used to seeing in fiction. There’s some comfort in harsher stories, and witnessing how one character rebuilds after tragedy can provide hope for the reader.”

Adam Silvera (1990) American author

On what he aims for as a storyteller in “History Is All You Left Me Author Adam Silvera Talks Second Books and More with Nicola Yoon” https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/teen/history-left-author-adam-silvera-talks-second-books-nicola-yoon/ (Barnes & Noble; 2017 Jan 19)

Love, Happiness, Making love, Hope

“There have been many complaints of people interested in the occult sciences that they had never got any chance at all to be initiated by a personal master or leader (guru). Therefore only people endowed with exceptional faculties, a poor preferred minority seemed to be able to gain this sublime knowledge. Thus a great many of serious seekers of the truth had to go through piles of books just to catch one pearl of it now and again. The one, however, who is earnestly interested in his progress and does not pursue this sacred wisdom from sheer curiosity or else is yearning to satisfy his own lust, will find the right leader to initiate him in this book. No incarnate adept, however high his rank may be, can give the disciple more for his start than the present book does. If both the honest trainee and the attentive reader will find in this book all they have been searching for in vain all the years, then the book has fulfilled its purpose completely.”

Franz Bardon book Initiation Into Hermetics

Introduction p. 8.
Initiation Into Hermetics (1956)

Wisdom, People, Truth, Books

“My brother was always glued to his books, an ardent reader and an educationist.”

Manmohan Singh (1932) 13th Prime Minister of India

Surjit Singh, his younger brother, as quoted in "Singh brothers see bright future for economy" http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2004-05-20/news/27389027_1_manmohan-singh-surjit-singh-big-brother, The Economic Times (20 May 2004)

Books

“I believe it’s something that happens when one is around art, and when one is close to books: they seep into your system, into your blood, and start to activate something in your life. We start living in the way that some of these characters live, with some sense of their sensibility. It’s almost as if the reader becomes the writer and the writer becomes the reader…”

Nilo Cruz (1960) American playwright

On how a written work may speak to you in “Nilo Cruz by Emily Mann” https://bombmagazine.org/articles/nilo-cruz/ in BOMB Magazine (2004 Jan 1)

Life, Books, Art, Way

“I love that Camilla is trying to figure it out. We tell kids there are no stupid questions. But when you throw race in the mix, there are a lot of questions — some are painful to ask, some are painful to answer and we all say stupid things sometimes. I hope readers feel after reading Cammi’s story that it’s not about one moment or interaction, it’s about staying heart strong and moving forward. Like Maya Angelou used to say, when you know better, you do better.”

Veronica Chambers (1970) writer

On the character arc of Camilla in “Author Interview: Veronica Chambers questions Mexican immigrant stereotypes in ‘The Go-Between’” https://www.hypable.com/author-interview-veronica-chambers-the-go-between/ in Hypable (2017 May 9)

Love, Pain, Stupidity, Making love

“If all human production (aesthetic or otherwise) has its documentary aspect (i. e., it can be associated, by a knowledgeable reader, with a time and place), does this endanger its aesthetic aspects per se? It is the richness of the pattern that is aesthetically at stake. How many art histories does it take to make us understand that reference (a use context) and historicity are not the same?”

Samuel R. Delany book Flight from Nevèrÿon

Section 8.55 (p. 241)
Flight from Nevèrÿon (1985)

Making love, Art, History, Understanding

“The theme of choice and the power of culture pops up in my stories often. Before Binti, the biggest example of this is in Who Fears Death when Onyesonwu must face the decision of whether or not to go through a ceremony that required cutting off her clitoris. To many readers, the fact that she even has to think about whether or not to do this is shocking. It’s not shocking to me at all, coming from the culture that I come from where the individual is often secondary to the community…”

Nnedi Okorafor (1974) Nigerian-American writer of fantasy and science fiction

On choice being reconciled with culture in her works in “Interview: A Conversation with Nnedi Okorafor” http://weirdfictionreview.com/2017/02/interview-conversation-nnedi-okorafor/ in Weird Fiction Review (2017 Feb 20) Personal life

Death, Fear, Communication, Thinking

“We, you, reader, and I, are parts of nature, and are as liable to deserve the suspicion of infallibility as any other part. Why not? We represent the boldest and most elaborate evolutions. Why should we be the authors of the most disreputable phenomena?”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), The Social Problem, p. 87

Nature, Parting

“By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, today in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be represented as a bête noire, the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!”

Albert Einstein book The World as I See It

Noch eine Art Anwendung des Relativitätsprinzips zum Ergötzen des Lesers: Heute werde ich in Deutschland als "deutscher Gelehrter", in England als "Schweizer Jude" bezeichnet; sollte ich aber einst in die Lage kommen, als "bète noire" präsentiert zu werden, dann wäre ich umgekehrt für die Deutschen ein „Schweizer Jude“, für die Engländer ein "deutscher Gelehrter". Einstein On His Theory The Times London 1919-11-28 http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/viewArticle.arc?articleId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1919-11-28-13-011&pageId=ARCHIVE-The_Times-1919-11-28-13, quoted in Herman Bernstein: Celebrities of Our Time. New York 1924. p. 267 ( archive.org http://www.archive.org/details/celebritiesofour000452mbp). Einstein's original German text in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. Volume 7. Doc. 25 p. 210, and at germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/docpage.cfm?docpage_id=5438&language=german after Albert Einstein, Mein Weltbild. Amsterdam: Querido Verlag, 1934, pp. 220-28. Manuscript at alberteinstein.info http://alberteinstein.info/vufind1/Digital/EAR000033998#page/7/mode/2up. Variant translation: If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will say I am a man of the world. If it's proven wrong, France will say I am a German and Germany will say I am a Jew. 1910s Variant: If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew. (Address to the French Philosophical Society at the Sorbonne (6 April 1922); French press clipping (7 April 1922) [Einstein Archive 36-378] and Berliner Tageblatt (8 April 1922) [Einstein Archive 79-535]) Variant: If relativity is proved right the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German and the Germans will call me a Jew.

Science

“A translator has divided loyalties. He has a duty to his author, a duty to his reader and a duty to the text. The three are by no means identical and are often hard to reconcile.”

David Hawkes (sinologist) (1923–2009) British sinologist

Preface to The Story of the Stone, Vol. 2: 'The Crab-Flower Club' (1979), p. 20

Loyalty

“In some of the earlier work, I liked to keep readers guessing: one story asked a question, and another resolved it. For the stories I’m working on now—both the new ones and the older ones I’m revisiting—I want to wring everything out. That way, I don’t have to write separate stories for every character who surprises me.”

Edwidge Danticat (1969) Novelist, short story writer, memoirist

On how her short story writing style has evolved in “An Interview | Edwidge Danticat” http://www.bkreview.org/fall-2018/an-interview-with-edwidge-danticat/ in The Brooklyn Review (Fall 2018) Interviews

Way, Question

“The construction of short stories calls for a markedly different set of mind than work on a novel, and for me short stories are at once more interesting and more difficult to write than longer work. The comparative brevity of the story dictates more economical and accurate use of words and images, a limited palette of events, fewer characters, tighter dialogue, strong title and punctuation that works to move the story forward. If the writer is trying to illustrate a particular period or place, a collection of short stories is a good way to take the reader inside a house of windows, each opening onto different but related views—a kind of flip book of place, time and manners.”

Annie Proulx (1935) American novelist, short story and non-fiction author

On her short story collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories in “An Interview with Annie Proulx” https://www.missourireview.com/article/an-interview-with-annie-proulx/ in The Missouri Review (1999 Mar 1) Personal life and writing career

Books, Way, Strong, Relation ships

“The moment one speaks of returning to the concept of a revolutionary communist party, and motivates this return with a reclamation of past categories of struggle (i. e. the vanguard, proletariat-bourgeoisie, revisionism and anti-revisionism, revolutionary science), every defense mechanism conditioned by the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the supposed triumph of world capitalism is mobilized to inoculate the reader from ideological contamination.”

J. Moufawad-Paul Canadian academic and writer

Prologue: Maoism and Philosophy
Continuity and Rupture:Philosophy in the Maoist Terrain (2016)

World, Motivation, Science, Past

“The reader is struck by Witzel’s repeated disparaging remarks against the Puranas and their utility in the derivation of Indian history. Scholars who have read Witzel’s publications in detail inform me that there is nothing in them that betrays even a faint understanding and first-hand knowledge of this genre of literature on his part. Thus, Witzel’s repeated attempts to downgrade Puranas as a valid source of history (which, albeit should be used with caution) merely reflect his attempt to hide his own ignorance.”

Shrikant Talageri (1958) Indian author

Michael Witzel – An Examination of his Review of my Book (2001)

History, Literature, Understanding, Knowledge

“The press to-day is an army with carefully organized arms and branches, with journalists as officers, and readers as soldiers. But here, as in every army, the soldier obeys blindly, and war-aims and operation-plans change without his knowledge. The reader neither knows, nor is allowed to know, the purposes for which he is used, nor even the role that he is to play. A more appalling caricature of freedom of thought cannot be imagined. Formerly a man did not dare to think freely. Now he dares, but cannot; his will to think is only a willingness to think to order, and this is what he feels as his liberty.”

Oswald Spengler book The Decline of the West

Vol. II, Alfred A. Knopf, 1928, p. 462 https://archive.org/stream/Decline-Of-The-West-Oswald-Spengler/Decline_Of_The_West#page/n931/mode/2up The Decline of the West (1918, 1923)

War, Feeling, Imagination, Knowledge

“When we read Spinoza, we are seized with a feeling like that of seeing nature at its grandest in most vigorous repose: a forest of thoughts, tall as the sky, whose blooming tree-tops sway back and forth, while imperturbable trunks stand rooted in the eternal soil. There is a certain soft breeze in the writings of Spinoza which is inexplicable. It stirs the reader with the winds of the future. The spirit of the Hebrew prophets still rested perhaps on their late descendant. At the same time, there is a seriousness to him, a self-confident pride, a grandeur of thought which also seems to be an inheritance, since Spinoza belonged to one of those families of martyrs which had been expelled from Spain by those most Catholic kings.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Heinrich Heine, On the History of Philosophy and Religion and Other Writings [original in German]
G - L

Family, Feeling, Confidence, Nature

“My philosophy isn’t only not conducive to misanthropy, as it might appear to a superficial reader, and as many have accused me. It essentially rules out misanthropy, it tends toward healing, to dissolving discontent and hatred. Not knee-jerk hatred but the deep-dyed hatred that unreflective people who would deny being misanthropes so cordially bear (habitually or on select occasions) toward their own kind in response to hurts they receive—as we all do, justly or not—from others. My philosophy holds nature guilty of everything, it acquits mankind completely and directs our hate, or at least our lamentations, to its matrix, to the true origin of the afflictions living creatures suffer, etc.”

Giacomo Leopardi book Zibaldone

2nd January, 1829. Translation by W. S. Di Piero.
Zibaldone (1898)

Hate, People, Jerk, Nature

“The subject-matter of this book is sadhana. There are not many books like this on this subject showing such mastery and insight. Sri Anirvan lived a life of dedication and reflection and he speaks as an insider. He takes his readers onto unfamiliar grounds and there is no doubt that they will find in him a sure guide on this unusual pilgrimage.”

Anirvan (1896–1978) Indian Hindu philosopher

Inner yoga (antaryoga): Anirvan. (1988). New Delhi: Voice of India. From the Introduction by Ram Swarup.

Life, Books

“He leaves the reader with a realization. The line between those born with choices and those not so lucky is very thin. The side of the divide you’re born on is purely random.”

Jeet Thayil (1959) Indian writer

Savita Iyer, Ahrestani in: "Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil Dens and iniquity"

“Is not just a faded echo of the feeble voice of decadent romanticism but an authentic Indian English utterance exquisitely tuned to the composite to Indian ethos, bringing home to the unbiased reader all the opulence, pageantry and charm of Indian life, and the spenders of Indian scene.”

Sarojini Naidu (1879–1949) Indian politician, governor of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh from 1947 to 1949

Review of her poetry publications in *[Das, Sisir Kumar, History of Indian Literature: 1911-1956, struggle for freedom : triumph and tragedy, http://books.google.com/books?id=sqBjpV9OzcsC, 1 January 1995, Sahitya Akademi, 978-81-7201-798-9, 184]

Life, Home

“Physics by its very nature requires extreme specialization on the part of its students. Its conclusions, which must eventually predict numbers for the results of actual measurements, are best expressed in mathematical formulae. This has the disadvantage of making the subject well-nigh unintelligible to the layman. There are unfortunately few teachers who are able to surmount this handicap. Professor Raman has written a book which avoids this pitfall and thus should give the lay reader an opportunity of penetrating at least part of the way into the mysteries of this interesting and important science.”

C. V. Raman (1888–1970) Indian physicist

Francis Low, a distinguished theoretical physicist then working at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, wrote in the introduction to this book quoted in Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman:A Legend of Modern Indian Science, 22 November 2013, Official Government of India's website Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/scientists/cvraman/raman1.htm,

Books, Making love, Way, Mathematics

“Full of spirit, wit and good sense and as free of humbug as the man himself, The Freethinker’s Prayer Book by Khushwant Singh, is a book of inspiration, comfort and entertainment for every discerning reader.”

Khushwant Singh (1915–2014) Indian novelist and journalist

Quoted in The Freethinker’s Prayer Book by Khushwant Singh – Advance Book Review, 21 December 2013, Latest Book Reviews Net http://latestbookreviews.net/the-freethinkers-prayer-book-by-khushwant-singh-book-review-release-date/,

Books, Sense

“SPAN ID=A_frustrated_or_unhappy_animal> A frustrated or unhappy animal can do relatively little about its tensions. A human being, however, with an extra dimension (the world of symbols) to move around in, not only undergoes experience, but he also symbolizes his experience to himself. Our states of tension--especially the unhappy tensions -- become tolerable as we manage to state what is wrong -- to get it said -- whether to a sympathetic friend, or on paper to a hypothetical sympathetic reader, or even to oneself. If our symbolizations are adequate and sufficiently skillful, our tensions are brought symbolically under control.”

S. I. Hayakawa book Language in Thought and Action

To achieve this control, one may employ what Kenneth Burke has called "symbolic strategies" -- that is, ways of reclassifying our experiences so that they are "encompassed" and easier to bear. Whether by processes of "pouring out one's heart" or by "symbolic strategies" or by other means, we may employ symbolizations as mechanisms of relief when the pressures of a situation become intolerable. 
Source: Language in Thought and Action (1949), Bearing the Unbearable, p. 144-145

World, Animals

“My proof that homosexuality is not a choice? A question for my straight male readers: Is there anything I could do or say or write that would convince you to willingly, happily, eagerly, anxiously, deliriously, lustfully put my dick in your mouth and leave it there until I had an orgasm? I rest my case.”

Dan Savage book Skipping Towards Gomorrah

Source: Skipping Towards Gomorrah (2002), p. 79

Question

“You’ve got to look at life clearly. No rose-colored glasses. The human race is not very admirable. It was a big mistake of God’s... The more I see of people, the more bitter I become. I think I appeal to readers because there’s nothing false or hypocritical in what I write. And they recognize themselves, and recognize their fears. And they know what bastards they are.”

Taylor Caldwell (1900–1985) Novelist

1970s-, The Captains, the Kings, and Taylor Caldwell (1978)

Life, God, People, Fear

“Sinclair Lewis was a crypto-sentimentalist and a slovenly writer who managed a slight falsification of life in order to move the reader.”

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright

James Gould Cozzens, "Books: The Hermit of Lambertville", Time, 2 September 1957

Life

“In Poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their centre. I think Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity — it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance — Its touches of Beauty should never be halfway thereby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural to him — shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the luxury of twilight — but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it — and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to John Taylor (February 27, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)

Making love, Beauty, Nature, Thinking

“Jane Austen is thus a mistress of much deeper emotion than appears upon the surface. She stimulates us to supply what is not there. What she offers is, apparently, a trifle, yet is composed of something that expands in the reader’s mind and endows with the most enduring form of life scenes which are outwardly trivial. Always the stress is laid upon character. How, we are made to wonder, will Emma behave when Lord Osborne and Tom Musgrave make their call at five minutes before three, just as Mary is bringing in the tray and the knife-case? It is an extremely awkward situation. The young men are accustomed to much greater refinement. Emma may prove herself ill-bred, vulgar, a nonentity. The turns and twists of the dialogue keep us on the tenterhooks of suspense. Our attention is half upon the present moment, half upon the future. And when, in the end, Emma behaves in such a way as to vindicate our highest hopes of her, we are moved as if we had been made witnesses of a matter of the highest importance. Here, indeed, in this unfinished and in the main inferior story, are all the elements of Jane Austen’s greatness. It has the permanent quality of literature. Think away the surface animation, the likeness to life, and there remains, to provide a deeper pleasure, an exquisite discrimination of human values.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Virginia Woolf, The Common Reader (1925)

Life, Men, Pleasure, Making love

“It is a general observation that people write as they read. As a rule, careful writers are careful readers and vice versa. A careful writer wants to be read carefully. He cannot know what it means to be read carefully but by having done careful reading himself. Reading precedes writing. We read before we write. We learn to write by reading. A man learns to write well by reading well good books, by reading most carefully books which are most carefully written.”

Leo Strauss book Persecution and the Art of Writing

Source: Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), How to Study Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, p. 144

People, Books, Learning, Reading

“People tend to wear the mask that shows them off in the best possible light—humble, confident, diligent. They say the right things, smile, and seem interested in our ideas. They learn to conceal their insecurities and envy. If we take this appearance for reality, we never really know their true feelings, and on occasion we are blindsided by their sudden resistance, hostility, and manipulative actions. Fortunately, the mask has cracks in it. People continually leak out their true feelings and unconscious desires in the nonverbal cues they cannot completely control—facial expressions, vocal inflections, tension in the body, and nervous gestures. You must master this language by transforming yourself into a superior reader of men and women. Armed with this knowledge, you can take the proper defensive measures. On the other hand, since appearances are what people judge you by, you must learn how to present the best front and play your role to maximum effect.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Women, Men, Hostility, People

“Now because 18 months ago the first dawn, 3 months ago broad daylight but a very few days ago the full sun of the most highly remarkable spectacle has risen — nothing holds me back. I can give myself up to the sacred frenzy, I can have the insolence to make a full confession to mortal men that I have stolen the golden vessel of the Egyptians to make from them a tabernacle for my God far from the confines of the land of Egypt. If you forgive me I shall rejoice; if you are angry, I shall bear it; I am indeed casting the die and writing the book, either for my contemporaries or for posterity to read, it matters not which: let the book await its reader for a hundred years; God himself has waited six thousand years for his work to be seen.”

Johannes Kepler book Mysterium Cosmographicum

Book V, Introduction
Variant translation: It may well wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer.
As quoted in The Martyrs of Science; or, the Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (1841) by David Brewster, p. 197. This has sometimes been misquoted as "It may be well to wait a century for a reader, as God has waited six thousand years for an observer."
Variant translation: I feel carried away and possessed by an unutterable rapture over the divine spectacle of heavenly harmony... I write a book for the present time, or for posterity. It is all the same to me. It may wait a hundred years for its readers, as God has also waited six thousand years for an onlooker.
As quoted in Calculus. Multivariable (2006) by Steven G. Krantz and Brian E. Blank. p. 126
Mysterium Cosmographicum (1596), Harmonices Mundi (1618)

Men, God, Books, Making love

“So, ungentle reader, (as you and I value what we should ashamed—after witnessing a few minor circus-marvels—to call our "lives,") let us never be fooled into taking seriously that perfectly superficial distinction which is vulgarly drawn between the circus-show and "art" or "the arts." Let us not forget that every authentic "work of art" is in and of itself alive and that, however "the arts" may differ among themselves, their common function is the expression of that supreme alive-ness which is known as "beauty."”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

This being so, our three ring circus is art—for to contend that the spectacle in question is not an authentic manifestation of "beauty" is as childish, as to dismiss the circus on the ground that it is "childish," is idiotic.
"The Adult, the Artist and the Circus." Vanity Fair (October 1925)

Beauty, Fools, Art, Forgetting

“We all – adults and children, writers and readers – have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals change their world over and over, individuals make the future, and they do it by imagining that things can be different.”

Neil Gaiman (1960) English fantasy writer

Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming (2013)

Children, Truth, World, Making love

“I do not write a story to make evident whatever disapproval I may feel for adulterous men. I write a story of a man who is adulterous to reveal the condition of such a man. If the adulterous man is a Jew, then I am revealing the condition of an adulterous man who is a Jew. Why tell that story? Because I seem to be interested in how — and why and when — a man acts counter to what he considers to be his "best self," or what others assume it to be, or would like for it to be. The subject is hardly "mine"; it interested readers and writers for a long time before it became my turn to be engaged by it, too.”

Philip Roth (1933–2018) American novelist

Writing About Jews (1963)

Men, Making love, Feeling, Time

“All cultural translation necessitates some interpretation and simplification. No sane reader would be able to make sense of a text which consisted exclusively of directly translated, unmediated quotations from informants. Compression and editing are therefore necessary elements of cultural translation. Moreover, no matter how outstanding an anthropologist is, as a fieldworker, as a writer and as an analyst, the text always represents a selection, and it will always to a greater or lesser extent be marked by the subjectivity of the translator.”

Thomas Hylland Eriksen (1962) Norwegian social anthropologist and professor

Source: What is Anthropology? (2nd ed., 2017), Ch. 2 : Key Concepts

Making love, Sense

“[M]athematics is not a popular subject... The reason for this is to be found in the common superstition that [it] is but a continuation... of the fine art of arithmetic, of juggling with numbers. [We] combat that superstition, by offering, instead of formulas, figures that may be looked at and that may easily be supplemented by models which the reader may construct. This book... bring[s] about a greater enjoyment of mathematics, by making it easier... to penetrate the essence of mathematics without... a laborious course of studies.”

David Hilbert Geometry and the Imagination

Preface
Geometry and the Imagination (1952)

Books, Making love, Art, Mathematics

“The various branches of geometry are all interrelated closely and quite often unexpectedly. This shows up in many places in the book. Even so... it was necessary to make each chapter...self-contained... We hope that... we have rendered each chapter taken by itself... understandable and interesting. We want to take the reader on a leisurely walk... in the big garden that is geometry, so that each may pick for himself a bouquet to his liking.”

David Hilbert Geometry and the Imagination

Preface
Geometry and the Imagination (1952)

Books, Making love, Hope, Understanding

“It first starts with an intrepid rat... that goes up to the toilet bowl of the Speaker, just as he's sitting down to do his business... Some readers who couldn't get past the first few pages... called it disgusting and upsetting, and I said, "Well, you're describing the behavior of Congress..."”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

"How The Rats Reformed The Congress" (2018)

Behavior, Business, Past

“Commerce, Opulence, Luxury, Effeminacy, Cowardice, Slavery: these are the stages of national degradation. We are in the fourth; and, I beg the reader to consider, to look into history, to trace states in their fall, and then say how rapid is the latter part of the progress! Of the symptoms of effeminacy none is so certain as a change from athletic and hardy sports, or exercises, to those requiring less bodily strength, and exposing the persons engaged in them to less bodily suffering; and when this change takes place, be assured that national cowardice is at no great distance, the general admiration of deeds of hardihood having already been considerably lessened.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

‘Boxing’, Political Register (10 August 1805), p. 197
1800s

Exercises, History, Sport, Suffering

“I learned to pay attention to the readers and not to the madness…Because to be a writer in Turkey is a bit like being kissed on one cheek and slapped on the other.”

Elif Shafak (1971) Turkish writer

On focusing on her readership in “Elif Shafak: ‘I thought the British were calm about politics. Not any longer’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/16/elif-shalak-i-thought-the-british-were-calm-about-politics-booker-prize-shortlist in The Guardian (2019 Sep 16)

Kiss, Learning, Madness

“I'm sometimes asked how I would like to be remembered. I've had a diverse career as a writer, underwater explorer, space promoter and science populariser. Of all these, I want to be remembered most as a writer — one who entertained readers, and, hopefully, stretched their imagination as well.”

Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host

2000s and posthumous publications, 90th Birthday Reflections (2007)

Imagination, Science

“[T]he recognition of the irredeemable vanity and falsity of all beauty and all greatness is itself a kind of beauty and greatness that fills the soul when it is conveyed by a work of genius. And the spectacle of nothingness is itself a thing in these works, and seems to enlarge the reader’s soul, to raise it up and to make it take satisfaction in itself and its despair.”

Giacomo Leopardi book Zibaldone

260, 5th October 1820. Translation by Michael Caesar and Franco D'Intino et al. [Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, ISBN 9780141194400], p. 177
Zibaldone (1898)

Making love, Beauty, Soul, Despair

“…The resistance to English, the fear of English, has made us bad readers of English literature, because of our fear of contaminating the Spanish language, of losing it in the avalanche of North American influence…”

Luis Rafael Sánchez (1936) Puerto Rican playwright and novelist

On some people’s resistance to reading English literature in “Luis Rafael Sánchez: Counterpoints" https://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00096005/00024/14j (Sargasso, 1984)

Bad luck, Fear, Literature

“The reader collaborates with the author in every book, or The reader is co-author in every book.”

Maurice Barrès (1862–1923) French novelist

Tout livre a pour collaborateur son lecteur Source: Biographical notice http://www.evene.fr/celebre/biographie/maurice-barres-499.php on Evene

Books

“Fiction fosters empathy among readers by putting them in a position to consider deeply someone’s history, hopes, and ambitions…”

Vanessa Hua American journalist and writer

On how fiction might differ from her journalist works in “Motherhood and Migration: An Interview with Vanessa Hua on ‘A River of Stars’” https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/motherhood-and-migration-an-interview-with-vanessa-hua-on-a-river-of-stars/ in Los Angeles Review of Books (2018 Sep 13)

Hope, History

“Spoken Word poetry is an art form that fits me well because it enables me to bring all the layers of who I am into one space — A reader, writer, and performer…”

Raymond Antrobus (1986)

On his preferred poetry style in “Prose Interviews London Poet Raymond Antrobus” https://medium.com/prose-matters/prose-interviews-london-poet-raymond-antrobus-c0e1fdf720b9 in Medium Magazine (2016 Mar 30)

Art

“Upon going through the text the reader will notice how completely contrary to the facts are the cliches which are bandied about in public discourse in India, and which as a consequence so many have by now internalised....”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

A secular agenda, 1993

“To make the [reader] happy was not my objective, but to make the [reader] say, Yeah, that’s what would happen.”

Jack Kirby (1917–1994) American comic book artist, writer and editor

that was my objective. I knew the [reader] was never happy all the time. You take the Thing, he’d knock out 50 guys at a time and win — then maybe he’d sit down and kind of reflect on it: “Maybe I hurt somebody or maybe we could have done it some other way” like a human being would think, not like a monster. In other books the guy would knock out the gangs and that would be the end of it. You would see the guys in jail, and that’s it. Or it would say, “Wait until next week.”
Source: 1990, Gary Groth interview

Happiness, Making love

“A non-mathematical presentation has necessary limitations; and the reader who wishes to learn how certain exact results follow from Einstein's, or even Newton's, law of gravitation is bound to seek the reasons in a mathematical treatise. ...[T]he geometry of relativity in its perfect harmony expresses a truth... which my bowdlerised version misses.
But the mind is not content to leave scientific Truth in a dry husk of mathematical symbols, and demands that it shall be alloyed with familiar images.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882–1944) British astrophysicist

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)

Truth, Law, Mathematics, Learning

“One thing we have endeavoured to observe most scrupulously, namely, never to depart from the strictest facts and, in dealing with the difficult questions that have arisen during the year, we hope that we have used the utmost moderation possible under the circumstances. Our duty is very simple and plain. We want to serve the community, and in our own humble way to serve the Empire. We believe in the righteousness of the cause, which it is our privilege to espouse. We have an abiding faith in the mercy of the Almighty God, and we have firm faith in the British Constitution. That being so, we should fail in our duty if we wrote anything with a view to hurt. Facts we would always place before our readers, whether they are palatable or not, and it is by placing them constantly before the public in their nakedness that the misunderstanding between the two communities in South Africa can be removed.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Source: Indian Opinion (1 October 1903)

God, Faith, Hope, Way

“It hardly matters why a library is destroyed: every banning, curtailment, shredding, plunder or loot gives rise (at least as a ghostly presence) to a louder, clearer, more durable library of the banned, looted, plundered, shredded or curtailed. Those books may no longer be available for consultation, they may exist only in the vague memory of a reader or in the vaguer-still memory of tradition and legend, but they have acquired a kind of immortality.”

Alberto Manguel (1948) writer

A History of Reading (1996)
Source: The Library at Night, p. 123

Books, Memory

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for a writer to psychoanalyze herself or try to explain why she writes what she writes—it’s a reductive way of looking at oneself and one’s work. Readers really participate in the writing of a book. As a writer I’m giving the reader signs to help create the story with me. The reader is bringing his or her own memories, intelligence, preconceptions, prejudices, likes, dislikes. So the characters in your copy of the book are going to look and sound different than in mine. I have my own ideas, but once the book is out there it’s not really mine anymore, and my own idea isn’t any more valid than yours. And then I begin the long process of disengaging.”

Donna Tartt (1963) American writer

On how writers should avoid analyzing their own work in “Donna Tartt on The Goldfinch, Inspiration, and the Perils of Literary Fame” https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/a29022016/donna-tartt-goldfinch-interview/ in Town & Country (2019 Sep 12)

Books, Way, Intelligence, Idea

“I shall put the case somewhat from the standpoint of the militant suffragettes themselves, trying to give some idea of the philosophy and ethical principles underlying the militant propaganda and, above all, with the hope of making clear to American readers some of the radical differences between English and American conditions.”

Mary Winsor (1869–1956) American suffragist

Source: The Militant suffrage movement (1914)

Making love, Hope, Idea

“I was always determined to find just the right book for that one child who maybe was a reluctant reader. I knew there was a book to turn him on to reading. I just had to find it. I do have a special place in my heart for kids who maybe have trouble reading or who just don't want to for various reasons. It's always my goal to write books that will somehow entice them to want to read.”

Debbie Dadey (1959) American children's writer

Children's author Debbie Dadey visiting downtown library to sign books, brainstorm. https://lancasteronline.com/features/entertainment/children-s-author-debbie-dadey-visiting-downtown-library-to-sign/article_bf6e4607-f0ba-5e73-a88f-64c9cb876bb2.html (July 29, 2013)

Books, Reading, Heart

“Today’s fashion magazines may carry an article about the dangers of anorexia while bombarding its readers with images of emaciated young bodies representing the height of beauty and desirability.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

As quoted in Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics (2014), p.34

Beauty, Fashion

“What I try to do with my images is just give the reader a real feel for a place…It's very visceral. You open the page, and you are right there in the moment.”

Joe Sacco (1960) Maltese-American cartoonist and journalist; pioneer of the Non-Fiction Graphic Novel (b. 1960)

On what he aimed for with his book The Great War in “A Panorama Of Devastation: Drawing Of WWI Battle Spans 24 Feet” https://www.npr.org/2013/11/10/243068448/a-panorama-of-devastation-drawing-of-wwi-battle-spans-24-feet in NPR (2013 Nov 10)

Feeling

“Incomplete stories are make history of life. Their incompleteness makes them complete and generates curiosity in the readers, if the story is complete then it is read and kept aside, the incomplete story leaves its mark on the heart and mind of the reader and reader's start waiting for the end.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Life, History, Waiting, Reading

“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

World, Literature, Reading, Parting

“I have never had trouble with conflicting interpretations of my work. Once the story is published, it belongs to the reader.”

Michael Moorcock (1939) English writer, editor, critic

Introduction (p. viii)
The Wrecks of Time aka The Rituals of Infinity (1967)

“Place is important to my writing; I believe that if a reader gets a clear picture of the place where a character is from, then they can understand what motivates the character, what limits him or her…”

Jesmyn Ward (1977) American writer

Source: On using the setting to frame her novels in “Jesmyn Ward: ‘So much of life is pain and sorrow and wilful ignorance’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/12/jesmyn-ward-sing-unburied-sing-interview-meet-author in The Guardian (2017 Nov 12)

Motivation, Understanding

“Reader, if you don’t know what a database is, rest assured that an explanation of the concept would in no way increase your enjoyment in reading this account. If you do know, you will thank me for sparing you the details.”

Neal Stephenson (1959) American science fiction writer

Diachronicle: Days 57–221 (winter, year 0)
Source: The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. (2017)

Way, Reading

“I believe it is important to speak to your readers in person... to enable people to have a whole picture of me; I have to both write and speak. I view my role as a writer and also as an oral communicator.”

Buchi Emecheta (1944–2017) author

Source: On speaking to readers in “Interview with Buchi Emecheta” http://www.emeagwali.com/nigeria/biography/buchi-emecheta-voice-09jul96.html (Philip Emeagwali)

People, Communication, Personality

“Those in power (even if it's only for a little while) known nothing about literature, all they care about is power. And I'll play the fool for my readers, if I feel like it, but never for the powerful.”

Roberto Bolaño (1953–2003) Chilean author

Between Parentheses. Essays, Articles, and Speeches, 1998–2003. ed. Ignacio Echevarría, trans. Natasha Wimmer (New York: New Directions, 2011 [2004]). 358.
Variant: Alternative translation: "Those who have power—even for a short time—know nothing about literature; they are solely interested in power. I can be a clown to my readers, if I damn well please, but never to the powerful." Interview with Mónica Maristain for Playboy (Mexican edition), "The Last Interview" (2003), 102, in: The Last Interview. trans. Sybil Perez (New York: Mellville House, 2009). 93-123

Fools, Feeling, Literature

“If after ages grow more humaniz'd,
And present cruelty almost forgot;
How will the reader, shudd'ring, be surpris'd,
At living lobsters in a boiling pot.”

Isaac Gompertz (1774–1856)

Source: The Modern Antique; Or, The Muse in the Costume of Queen Anne (1813), "On the Same", p. 307

Age

“[W]e should beware of "hearing" silences where nearly all readers, setting aside how they would like a particular controversy to end, identify determinative text... "The heart has its reasons," as Pascal famously said, "that reason does not know."”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

Good enough. And those heartfelt reasons deserve a hearing. But when they defy reason, the meaning of living by the rule of law is that reason should prevail.
Soundings and Silences (2016)

Silence, Heart

“Every sentence, every phrase, is in part silent with respect to how a reader or listener is to go about attributing meaning to it...”

Laurence Tribe (1941) American lawyer and law school professor

Soundings and Silences (2016)

Parting

“I can but repeat now the statement, even at the risk of shocking some readers, that the Puritans were beguiled into the worst of their errors of policy, bigotry, and intolerance, by their belief in and their attempt to follow the teacings which they found in the Bible.”

George Edward Ellis (1814–1894) American Unitarian clergyman and historian (1814-1894)

[The Puritan Age and Rule in the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay, 1629-1685, https://books.google.com/books?id=toM-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA31, 31, 1888, Houghton, Mifflin, 978-0-7222-0646-1]

Error

“One should avoid rich neighbour, rich savant, and Quran reader on payment.”

Sari al-Saqati (772–867) Iraqi sufi

Source: The Sayings and Teachings of the Great Mystics of Islam, p. 43

“AN ODE TO JIM QUILL

Not too long ago
We lost a man
Who left Eire for Hyde
A diamond in the rough
One hero of our side

Jim Quill he was named
A natural union leader
One could not be blamed
To follow this avid reader

He lead the cotton workers
And the factory hands too
All those years fought at the top
How his life just flew

Trusted by his old pal Cripps
To guarantee the dignity of labour
Rest in peace, Jim Quill
You freed us from our slaver”