The good, the admirable reader identifies himself not with the boy or the girl in the book, but with the mind that conceived and composed that book. - Vladimir Nabokov
The writer doesn’t write for the reader. He doesn’t write for himself, either. He writes to serve…something. Somethingness. The somethingness that is sheltered by the wings of nothingness — those exquisite, enveloping, protecting wings. - Joy Williams
Books fashion nets to sustain and support the reader as he falls helplessly through the chaos of his own existence. - Fay Weldon
You have to invest yourself as a reader to be a good writer. - Saru Singhal
[I]f the writer does his job right, what he basically does is remind the reader of how smart the reader is. - David Foster Wallace
She (historian Barbara Tuchman) draws on skepticism, not cynicism, leaving the reader not so much outraged by human ability as amused and saddened by human folly. - Robert K. Massie
A writer draws a road map where readers walks with their love, joy, anger, tears, and dismay. Every story, every poem, has different meanings for every reader. - Debasish Mridha
Poetry is breathing words that gives a reader pause. - Ankita Singhal
Writing is hard work, not magic. It begins with deciding why you are writing and whom you are writing for. What is your intent? What do you want the reader to get out of it? What do you want to get out of it. It's also about making a serious time commitment and getting the project done. - Suze Orman
The way a book is read- which is to say,the qualities a reader brings to a book- can have as much to do with its worth as anything the author puts into it. - Norman Cousins
Not taking the Bible (or other texts based on 'revealed truths') literally leaves it up to the reader to cherry-pick elements for belief. There exists no guide for such cherry-picking, and zero religious sanction for it. - Jeffrey Tayler
The writer provides the text; the reader, the meaning. - Marty Rubin
Fiction, if done right, can bridge cultural divides. Stories can be a footpath for a reader to step into another land and view its indigenous practices and beliefs through a local lens, instead of a telescope. - Nadia Hashimi
A good novel, one which entices the author as much as it beckons the reader. - W.J. Raymond
Question marks are shaped like hooks for a reason: they will hook the reader and drag them deeper into the story - Chuck Wendig
I hope that the kind reader recognises this as a despairing attempt at humour. - Nancy Springer
As an author, I breathe life into each and every character within the stories that I write. But it is the reader who gives them their souls. - Scott Borgman
The reader is the final arbiter. - Sam Reaves
Little Voice is a story where every reader, young or old, can feel inspired by its positive, inspiring and motivating message. - Amanda Bernardo
I was a hugely unchaperoned reader, and I would wander into my local public library and there sat the world, waiting for me to look at it, to find out about it, to discover who I might be inside it."[ slams library cuts (The Guardian, 23 June 2011)] - Patrick Ness
A ghost who has only a lay knowledge of the subject will be able to keep asking the same questions as the lay reader, and will therefore open up the potential readership of the book to a much wider audience. - Robert Harris
The written word can make one pause and contemplate. It can make a reader sigh to dream or question a belief in considerable depth. But all of that is nothing if those words fail to touch the heart and make one feel. - Richelle E. Goodrich
The poem has a social effect of some kind whether or not the poet wills it to have. It has a kenetic force, it sets in motion...elements in the reader that would otherwise remain stagnant. - Denise Levertov
And that's why books are never going to die. It's impossible. It's the only time we really go into the mind of a stranger, and we find our common humanity doing this. So the book doesn't only belong to the writer, it belongs to the reader as well, and then together you make it what it is. - Paul Auster
A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle... - Vladimir Nabokov
Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them. - John Ruskin
Maybe we're all ongoing stories, defined at various stages of life, or whenever people oblige us to declare ourselves. Fiction is marvelous for studying this, allowing the writer and reader to leap decades in a sentence. No other art lets you bend time as much. - Tom Rachman
My definition of good literature is that which can be read by an educated reader, and reread with increased pleasure. - Gene Wolfe
A writer's thoughts can act as an Aladdin's lamp, which can enlighten and open the mind of a reader, by showing opportunities and beauties of life. - Debasish Mridha
[A]lways get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a big slab of prose at the start."(Interview, The Paris Review, Issue 64, Winter 1975) - P.G. Wodehouse
Writing is a gift to both the writer and the reader. - Cheryl Alleway
i know for sure,to be a leader i have to be a reader - Faiz Triumph
Every reader wants the same thing: to open the cover of a book and watch the words explode like fireworks off the page. - Kim Lehman
The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath. - Elizabeth Clarkson Zwart
Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. - Mark Twain
In crime books it's possible to chart forensic technology by how well it has to be explained to a reader. In mid-Victorian crime novels fingerprinting has to be explained because it's new. Nowadays it's part of our world and we can simply assume that knowledge if we write about it. - Sara Sheridan
Histories of morality are rarely written in order to inform the reader. - John Gray
Mom is a compulsive reader. She reads for pleasure, she reads to edify herself, but more often than not, she reads because she can't help it. I understand. The minute I find myself sitting still, I start rummaging around for printed material.p 97 - Michael Perry
The best endings resonate because they echo a word, phrase, or image from earlier in the story, and the reader is prompted to think back to that reference and speculate on a deeper meaning. - James Plath
It is said that you can't write without a reader. The opposite holds true as well; you can't read without a writer. But if as a single, creative person you are one in the same, then, well.....problem solved! Great writing is born from that which we personally long to read. - Richelle E. Goodrich
I decided that a story was anything that I made up that kept the reader turning the pages or watching, and did not leave the reader or the viewer feeling cheated at the end. - Neil Gaiman
An unread book does nobody any good. Stories happen in the mind of a reader, not among symbols printed on a page. - Brandon Mull
I'm not saying that you have to be a reader to save your soul in the modern world. I'm saying it helps. - Walter Mosely
You must take these poems as mirrors; for you know that the mirror has no form of itself, but rather reflects the face of anyone who looks in it. Just so a poem has no one particular meaning of itself , but presents to each reader his state of the moment and the completeness of his case - Ayn al-Qazat Hamadani Persian Mystic
There is nothing like the moment you connect with a reader! Nothing like the response that you get when what you have written touches someone in some way. It's a moment in which your work is almost a co-creation, you and the reader joining forces to make your words live. - Dani Harper
Today is a reader; Tomorrow is a leader - Margaret Fuller
No one was born a reader; we learn to build the habit of reading. - Lailah Gifty Akita
As every reader knows in his or her heart, there is much more to truth than mere fact. - Alison Croggon
The first task of every author is to evoke emotion in their reader. You may laugh or you may cry; you may love me or you may hate me. So long as you feel something, I know that I'm doing my job. - V.L. Dreyer
The act of reading will enrich your life.Become a lifelong learner and a reader. - Lailah Gifty Akita
A bad handwriting is as annoying to a reader … as an irritating voice is to a listener. - Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it. - Samuel Johnson
To read is to translate, for no two persons' experiences are the same. A bad reader is like a bad translator: he interprets literally when he ought to paraphrase and paraphrases when he ought to interpret literally. - W.H. Auden
An artist reveals his naked soul in his work - and so, gentle reader, do you when you respond to it. - Ayn Rand
I’m a reader who uses fiction as a way of worrying about life. - Lorin Stein
Only a true reader will understand how lovely it is to read a book on rainy days. - Nicholaa Spencer
All we can do is write, but its up to the reader to decide if we wrote masterpieces or empty silliness, and there is nothing you can do till another reader says different. - Uma Nnenna
The reason a writer writes a book is to forget a book and the reason a reader reads one is to remember it. - Tom Wolfe
Every time a written word is put to page it is the opportunity to expand our minds, whether we are the writer or the reader. Enjoy the journey wherever it may take you! - K. Lamb
Every poem should remind the reader that they are going to die. - Edgar Allan Poe
I always strive to create a setting that leaves the readers' imagination room to roam. That way, every reader sees the story through their own eyes. - P.S. Bartlett
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader. - Robert Frost
Don't forget, and don't let your reader forget, that the small world in which you have held him for the last hour or two hasn't ended. Be aware, and make him aware, that tomorrow all of its remaining inhabitants will pick up the broken fragments of their lives, and carry on. - Joseph Hansen
Read as widely and as deeply as you can. You have to be a reader before you can be a writer. - Y.S. Lee
One of the things I learned about writing a memoir is you can’t drag the reader through everything. Every human life is worth 20 memoirs. - Andre Dubus III
A book is not complete till it reaches a reader. - Aman Jassal
Suspense doesn’t always have to be about physical danger. Making the reader worry is a universal concept that can be applied to any story. - Sandy Vaile
The pen, a double-edged mystery: cuts the writer, heals the reader. - Jenim Dibie
i know for sure,to be a leader i have to be a good reader - Faiz Triumph
A word (...) is never the destination, merely a signpost in its general direction; and whatever (...) body that destination finally acquires owes quite as much to the reader as to the writer. - John Fowles
Tis the good reader that makes the good book. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Once a poet calls his myth a myth, he prevents the reader from treating it as a reality; we use the word 'myth' only for stories we ourselves cannot believe. - Adam Kirsch
A writer’s uniqueness glows and transforms the heart and the soul of a reader. - A.D. Posey
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader - Ernest Hemingway
As a writer, the main skill you need is curiosity. As a reader, the main tool you need is open-mindedness. - Gloria D. Gonsalves
Reading takes the reader to faraway lands, new cultures, new and exciting adventures; you meet new friends and enemies; it takes the reader from the heights of the imagination to the depths of human emotions; all without taking a single step. - Carlos Salinas
A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give. - T.S. Eliot
The text-book is rare that stimulates its reader to ask, Why is this so? Or, How does this connect with what has been read elsewhere? - J. Norman Collie
A good writer is an excellent reader. - Cyci Cade
...ending a book with a sequel in such a way that the reader still has faith in the characters and in the writer. That's finesse. - Shandy L. Kurth
A piece of art, when completed, encapsulates its own reality. As its architect, the artist’s task is to craft it well enough that the reader believes in its existence and is willing to enter, explore, and engage based on the artist’s version of the truth, even if that truth is artifice. - Kate Kearns
Your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person-a real person you know, or an imagined person-and write to that one. - John Steinbeck
Suddenly the reader's eyes were filled with tears, and a loving voice whispered in his ear: -Why are you crying if everything in that book isn't true?- And the reader replied: -I know; but what I feel is real. - Ángel González
it's doesn't matter how long you spend the time writing words , the only thing that matter , is for how long your words will have an influence on their reader . - Mahdi Khmili
The book is a film that takes place in the mind of the reader. That's why we go to movies and say, "Oh, the book is better. - Paulo Coelho
Sometimes it is the reader that sucks, not the book. - Mokokoma Mokhonoana
An author spends months writing a book, and maybe puts his heart's blood into it, and then it lies about unread till the reader has nothing else in the world to do. - W. Somerset Maugham
Through writing, an author opens the window of his heart through which a reader can see the inner self of the author. - Debasish Mridha
You're reading one of those books in which the author is in love with the reader. My life. - Saleem Sharma
To be a devout reader was to be an acolyte of solace. - Tanya Egan Gibson
All good writing is persuasive writing; persuading the reader to buy what you're selling, to side with you, to believe the tales you tell. - Ramsey Isler
A write only begins a book.A reader finishes it. - Samuel Johnson
Poetry should please by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance. - John Keats
A writer is merely a reader that had the guts to be read, and, heard. - Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Today a reader, tomorrow a leader. - Margaret Fuller
The first paragraph of my book must get me my reader. The last paragraph of a chapter must compel my reader to turn the page. The last paragraph of my book must ensure that my reader looks out for my next book. - Ashwin Sanghi
Mind your words, dear writer for you are holding a delicate reader in them. - Maria Stoica
I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn't be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage. - Roald Dahl
Any change that shortens the path between a writer and reader is a win for the book world. - K.J. Kilton
Don't be afraid to write and share your story with the reading world! Find your courage! It is a fact that some will love it and some will hate it, but there will always be at least one reader who needed it and that's all that matters! - S.L. Morgan
The idea is to spin the wheel of metaphors and images until sparks of associations begin to fly for the reader. - Charles Simic
A poem is a frozen momentmelted by each reader for themselvesto flow into the here and now. - Hilde Domin
Fiction books give the reader a chance to step away from their own reality and into the shoes of the characters, and they show you a world that isn't the one you already know. And sometimes the story's not so different from your own, and it lets you get closer to your own feelings. - Shin Towada
The glory of a good tale is that it is limitless and fluid; a good tale belongs to each reader in its own particular way. - Stephen King
You learn to write by writing, and by reading and thinking about how writers have created their characters and invented their stories. If you are not a reader, don't even think about being a writer. - Jean M. Auel
A Reader lives life (personal) within Life (social). - Harpy
Fiction has been maligned for centuries as being "false," "untrue," yet good fiction provides more truth about the world, about life, and even about the reader, than can be found in non-fiction. - Clark Zlotchew
The poet or the story-teller who cannot give the reader a little ghostly pleasure at times never can be either a really great writer or a great thinker. - Lafcadio Hearn
An author is an artist who paints a picture in the imagination of the reader. - Darrell Case
Reading is a collaboration between the writer and reader. Both parties must keep that in mind when dealing with a work of fiction.{} - Guy Gavriel Kay
One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well. - Amos Bronson Alcott
These two oo in "book" are like the two eyes of a reader who fell in love with a story. - Stefanos Livos
...hence the very best science fiction ultimately winds up being a collaboration between author and reader, in which both create - and enjoy it; joy is the essential and final ingredient of science fiction, the joy of discovery of newness - Philip K. Dick
A Piece of writing has to seduce the reader, it has to suspend disbelief and earn the reader's trust - Po Bronson
It takes a great reader to make a great book. - Orna Ross
A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer. - Dean Acheson
A good story is a dream shared by the author and the reader. Anything that wakes the reader from the dream is a mortal sin. - Victor J. Banis
Every so often a reader tells me, somewhat disappointedly, that their family doesn't have any secrets. To which I always reply that of course it does, they just don't know them yet. For where there are people living in close proximity, there will always be secrets. - Kate Morton, The Forgotten Garden
Typos are very important to all written form. It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the total lack of content in your writing. - Randy K. Milholland
A reader knows the mind of sacred souls. - Lailah Gifty Akita
Every reader can live One Thousand and One Lives; every fiction author can have One Thousand and One Masks, and their talent can have One Thousand and One Facets. - Lara Biyuts
Flow is something the reader experiences, not the writer. - Verlyn Klinkenborg
Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself. - Marcel Proust
Fiction though it is a fiction, should be written in a way that it feels like a reality, a reality every reader willingly or sometimes unwillingly goes through, until the reader finishes reading and sometimes even after that. - Arti Honrao
For a storyteller, an open ending leaves much room for imagination; for the inquisitive reader, however, it is a source of great anxiety. - Joyce Rachelle
I sometimes think that writing is like driving a sheep down the road. If there's any gate open to the left or the right the reader will most certainly go into it. - C.S. Lewis
The job of the first eight pages is not to have the reader want to throw the book at the wall, during the first eight pages. - David Foster Wallace
If literature has engaged me as a project, first as a reader, then as a writer, it is as an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other territories. - Susan Sontag
…when writing, always hook the reader with your first sentence…in love, never settle…value yourself first and this will help you to value others…life is short, so enjoy it to the fullest…everyone in the world is different, and that’s ok… - Spider Robinson
Each of us is a story, waiting for a devoted reader who will take us off the shelf and embrace all our plot twists. - John Mark Green
The rustic, the reader of novels, the pure ascetic: these three are truly happy men - Fernando Pessoa
You are not responsible for the reader, you're only responsible for what you are writing. - Debasish Mridha
We should not write so that it is possible for the reader to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us. - Marcus Fabius Quintilianus
So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed? - Hunter S. Thompson
Naturally, since I myself am a writer, I do not wish the ordinary reader to read no modern books. But if he must read only the new or only the old, I would advise him to read the old. - C.S. Lewis
I think that every reader on earth has a list of cherished books as unique as their fingerprints....I think that, as you age, you tend to gravitate towards the classics, but those aren't the books that give you the same sort of hope for the world that a cherished book does. - Douglas Coupland
The best effect of any book is that it excites the reader to self-activity. - Thomas Carlyle
Though the immediate impression of rebellion may obscure the fact, the task of authentic literature is nevertheless only conceivable in terms of a desire for fundamental communication with the reader. - Georges Bataille
There’s plenty of room for strangeness, mystery, originality, wildness, etc. in poems that also invite the reader into the human and alive center about which the poem circles. - Thomas Lux
I guess a bit part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves. - David Foster Wallace
There is this unwritten contract between author and reader and I think not ending your book kind of violates that contract.
I have enormous respect for the reader. They are able to take symbols from a page that an author has invented, and turn them into images in their minds that create an enduring story. If that’s not artistry, I don’t know what is. - Lynette Willows
I hope for what I always hope for as a writer: a critical but kind reader. I think that is what we all hope for. - Christos Tsiolkas
You are a reader, and therefore a thinker, an observer, a living soul who wants more out of this human experience. - Salil Jha