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Link Quote Stars Tags Author
dbd3681 A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one. reading reading-books readers George R.R. Martin
c749226 The odd thing about people who had many books was how they always wanted more. reading books book-lovers readers Patricia A. McKillip
f4fd986 Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know. reading inspirational readers-and-writers reasons-for-reading reading-books readers Alberto Manguel
c48741c Dogeared pages were Antichrist of book lovers everywhere. readers Jennifer L. Armentrout
9f49591 We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write. writing write readers stories Neil Gaiman
0825a31 When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced. reading impact ideas readers Salman Rushdie
1c5a9b6 Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in their jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you're off on a journey of exploration and discovery. covers discovery books inspirational adventure advice book readers reader David Almond
4b8adef "1. Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the things they read (or watch, or listen to, or taste, or whatever). They're also entitled to express them online. 2. Sometimes those opinions will be ones you don't like. 3. Sometimes those opinions won't be very nice. 4. The people expressing those may be (but are not always) assholes. 5. However, if your solution to this "problem" is to vex, annoy, threaten or harrass them, you are a bigger asshole. 6. You may also be twelve. 7. You are not responsible for anyone else's actions or karma, but you are responsible for your own. 8. So leave them alone and go about your own life." criticism freedom-of-opinion reviewers reviewing opinions freedom-of-expression freedom-of-speech reviews bullying readers censorship John Scalzi
e9940ad 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. reading life readers writers Lloyd Alexander
92b919d Up until then, whenever anyone had mentioned the possibility of making a film adaptation, my answer had always been, 'No, I'm not interested.' I believe that each reader creates his own film inside his head, gives faces to the characters, constructs every scene, hears the voices, smells the smells. And that is why, whenever a reader goes to see a film based on a novel that he likes, he leaves feeling disappointed, saying: 'the book is so much better than the film. films-based-on-novels novels film readers Paulo Coelho
fb8a68e It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious corpus of volumes whose subject matter is completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner. library readers Anne Fadiman
5b83e01 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. writing self-awareness self-recognition readers writers Marcel Proust
fab69ac If every library is in some sense a reflection of its readers, it is also an image of that which we are not, and cannot be. library reflection readers Alberto Manguel
b6a96d1 Writing is saying to no one and to everyone the things it is not possible to say to someone. writing storytelling readers Rebecca Solnit
0085625 Life ... is a bit like reading. ... If all your responses to a book have already been duplicated and expanded upon by a professional critic, then what point is there to your reading? Only that it's yours. Similarly, why live your life? Because it's yours. But what if such an answer gradually becomes less and less convincing? living readers writers Julian Barnes
20f87d2 Readers, censors know, are defined by the books they read. censors readers reader Alberto Manguel
a597803 Let us record the atoms as they fall upon the mind in the order in which they fall, let us trace the pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon the consciousness. Let us not take it for granted that life exists more fully in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small. writing authors readers Virginia Woolf
84d064b Readers are bullied in schoolyards and in locker-rooms as much as in government offices and prisons. reading books readers Alberto Manguel
f5e3d2b The reader! You, dogged, uninsultable, print-oriented bastard, it's you I'm addressing, who else, from inside this monstrous fiction. You've read me this far, then? Even this far? For what discreditable motive? How is it you don't go to a movie, watch TV, stare at a wall, play tennis with a friend, make amorous advances to the person who comes to your mind when I speak of amorous advances? Can nothing surfeit, saturate you, turn you off? Where's your shame? reading passion biblioholism addicts readers John Barth
d624444 The characters within a book were, from a certain point of view, identical on some fundamental level - there weren't any images of them, no physical tangibility whatsoever. They were pictures in the reader's head, constructs of imagination and ideas, given shape by the writer's work and skill and the reader's imagination. Parents, of a sort. imagination characters ideas readers writers Jim Butcher
c6bfde6 Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose. reading books subtlety readers Carol Shields
0b6eab7 If the writer were more like a reader, he'd be a reader, not a writer. It's as uncomplicated as that. writing readers writers Julian Barnes
86472dd There is only one thing that you write for yourself, and that is a shopping list. writing reasons craft why readers writers Umberto Eco
18332ca Books were something that happened to readers. Readers were the victims of books. reading readers Holly Black
fc4af5c Literature does not occur in a vacuum. It cannot be a monologue. It has to be a conversation, and new people, new readers, need to be brought into the conversation too. literature readers Neil Gaiman
2581d20 Perhaps they were looking for passion; perhaps they delved into this book as into a mysterious parcel - a gift box at the bottom of which, hidden in layers of rustling tissue paper, lay something they'd always longed for but couldn't ever grasp. reading readers Margaret Atwood
3a092a6 I'm a great reader that never has time to read. time reading free-time readers Eudora Welty
0598558 As readers, we are seldom interested in the fine sentiments of a lesson learnt; we seldom care about the good manners of morals. Repentance puts an end to conversation; forgiveness becomes the stuff of moralistic tracts. Revenge - bloodthirsty, justice-hungry revenge - is the very essence of romance, lying at the heart of much of the best fiction. revenge romance repentance forgiveness readers morals Alberto Manguel
758d158 Great readers (are) those who know early that there is never going to be time to read all there is to read, but do their darnedest anyway. reading readers Larry McMurtry
de2de3f "Zaid's finest moment, however, comes in his second paragraph, when he says that "the truly cultured are capable of owning thousands of unread books without losing their composure or their desire for more." That's me! And you, probably! That's us!" readers Nick Hornby
f931067 Every article and review and book that I have ever published has constituted an appeal to the person or persons to whom I should have talked before I dared to write it. I never launch any little essay without the hope--and the fear, because the encounter may also be embarrassing--that I shall draw a letter that begins, 'Dear Mr. Hitchens, it seems that you are unaware that...' It is in this sense that authorship is collaborative with 'the reader.' And there's no help for it: you only find out what you ought to have known by pretending to know at least some of it already. It doesn't matter how obscure or arcane or esoteric your place of publication may be: some sweet law ensures that the person who should be scrutinizing your work eventually does do so. writing books authorship book-reviews collaboration essays readers writers Christopher Hitchens
38729dc Writing is a craft, being an author is work, and having readers and a following is a gift. writing work followers craft readers Michael J. Kannengieser
e376956 This is the strange life of books that you enter along as a writer, mapping an unknown territory that arises as you travel. If you succeed in the voyage, others enter after, one at a time, also alone, but in communion with your imagination, traversing your route. Books are solitudes where we meet. reading writing books readers writers Rebecca Solnit
45c17d3 "Writers think in metaphors. Editors work in metaphors. A great reader reads in metaphors. All are continually asking, "What does this represent? What does it stand for?" They are trying to take everything one level deeper. When they get to that level, they will try to go deeper again." metaphor readers writers Steven Pressfield
dea86e0 Thanks for being the kind of person who likes to pick up a book. That's a genuinely great thing. I met a librarian recently who said she doesn't read because books are her job and when she goes home, she just wants to switch off. I think we can agree that that's creepy as hell. gratitude reading thanks readers librarians Max Barry
672e66e We were all serious readers, sitting on wooden chairs at rows of lecterns, turning the pages, united in mutual love of isolation. library reading readers Michael Moorcock
ee05013 When you write it, don't write it in the manner of a spooky story. Don't try to give an explanation. Just say that I don't know what to make of it, just write it like I tell it, so the reader can make up his own mind. magical-realism interpretation readers stories David Mitchell
f88b7a0 gr adm fqT pnj shsh khtb r bh khwby my shnkht, chh mHqq brjsth y my shd novelist reviewers readers writers Gustave Flaubert
a5a17ac The books on my shelves do not know me until I open them, yet I am certain that they address me -- me and every other reader -- by name; they await our comments and opinions. I am presumed in Plato as I am presumed in every book, even in those I'll never read. reading known-reader readers Alberto Manguel
ee0fe07 Even if readers claim that they 'take it all with a grain of salt', they do not really. They yearn to believe, and they believe, because believing is easier than disbelieving, and because anything which is written down is likely to be 'true in a way'. reading fiction writing façades readers Iris Murdoch
5733ba1 Decker looked behind him. 'That's nice.' 'What?' said Mars, looking too. 'Where the NAACP office was they built a public library. You know people who read are a lot more tolerant and open-minded than those who don't.' 'Great, so let's get everybody in the world a library card. tolerance readers David Baldacci
8a9e418 And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them anything, you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they will know nothing. And as men filled not with wisdom but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellow-men. reading conceit-of-wisdom dangers-of-reading semblance-of-wisdom readers Alberto Manguel
5adaf0e To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history. life intriguing readers secrets Elizabeth Kostova
c407c5a This is where we should start focusing this conversation: how men (as readers, critics, and editors) can start to bear the responsibility for becoming better, broader readers. men feminism reading readers Roxane Gay
4e83d7e Geschichten sind unser Gedachtnis, Bibliotheken die Lagerstatten fur dieses Gedachtnis und Lesen das Handwerk, mit dem wir dieses Gedachtnis neu erschaffen konnen, indem wir es rezitieren und glossieren, es wieder in unsere eigene Erfahrung ruckubersetzen und so auf dem aufbauen, was fruhere Generationen fur bewahrenswert hielten. reception readers memory Alberto Manguel
fb2c7dd You are your own best teacher. ~Jimmy Buffett readers writers Jimmy Buffett
90d4db2 What I can say with honesty is that my research in Russia and in Germany has brought me nothing but the worsening of my eyesight and the waste of years of my life. And I did it all for you. research worsening readers Nick Tosches