Top 100 Quotes About A Good Reader
#1. I'm not a masochistic reader. If something is just too dense or not enjoyable, even though I'm told it should be good for me, I'll put it down. That said, most of what I read would be considered high-end or good for you, I suppose. But, I also think that reading should be enjoyable.
Josh Radnor
#2. Books are a weird collaboration between author and reader: You trust me to tell a good story, and I trust you to bring it to good life in your mind.
John Green
#3. You have very short travel blogs, and I think there's a split among travel writers: the service-oriented writers will say, 'Well, the reader wants to read about his trip, not yours.' Whereas I say, the reader just wants to read a good story and to maybe learn something.
Tim Cahill
#4. Do not tell me what to do, tell me what you do. Do not tell me what is good for me, tell me what is good for you. If, at the same time, you reveal the you in me, if you become a mirror to my inner self, then you have made a reader and a friend.
George A. Sheehan
#7. Naturally I drew register a little exaggerated, in order to create something new in the sense of a sublime literature that sings of despair only in order to oppress the reader, and make him desire the good as the remedy.
Comte De Lautreamont
#8. Good writing is about finding and exploiting anecdotes that resonate with the reader. In storytelling, it's OK if you only make one point, as long as it's a good one.
Ben Clymer
#9. I was a very avid reader when I was a child, and I also was a good listener.
Joseph Bruchac
#11. Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident ... Every little qualifier whittles away some fraction of the reader's trust. Readers want a writer who believes in himself and in what he is saying. Don't diminish that belief. Don't be kind of bold. Be bold.
William Zinsser
#13. There is no reader so parochial as the one who reads none but this morning's books. Books are not rolls, to be devoured only when they are hot and fresh. A good book retains its interior heat and will warm a generation yet unborn.
Clifton Fadiman
#14. A good writer should draw the reader in by starting in the middle of the story with a hook, then go back and fill in what happened before the hook. Once you have the reader hooked, you can write whatever you want as you slowly reel them in.
Roland Smith
#15. A good reader should always have two books with him: one to read, the other one to lend.
Gabrielle Dubois
#16. Naturally, the reader has access only to the events I show and the way I show them, but as has been said, there's generally a good deal of ambiguity in that presentation.
John M. Ford
#17. It is a fact that, being a quick reader, apart from enabling a person to study good books such as Macaulay and Gibbon, enables a person to read a lot of bad books as well.
Antonia Fraser
#18. I really rely a lot more on memory. I'm definitely not as good of a sight reader.
John Petrucci
#19. That said, nothing builds reader involvement more surely than a character whose moral struggle pervades the tale. When readers hope, beg, and plead with you to let a character turn toward the light, you have readers where you want them. A character who is good is good; a character
Donald Maass
#20. The greatest compliment a writer can be given is that a story and character hold a reader spellbound. I'm caught up in the story writing and I miss a good deal of sleep thinking about it and working out the plot points.
Iris Johansen
#21. The gift of a writer as good as Dickens is not to explain everything; that way, the reader has, in terms of their imagination, somewhere to go.
Ronald Frame
#22. The reader has to be creative when he's reading. He has to try to make the thing alive. A good reader has to do a certain amount of work when he is reading.
Nathalie Sarraute
#23. I was a good sight reader and I could sing two or three of these jingles a day. An orchestra would come in for half an hour, and then the singers would come in and knock 'em out, and go on to the next one. I was the voice of Budweiser and Almond Joy.
Valerie Simpson
#24. With 'Attachments,' my goal was to write a really good romantic comedy. I wanted the reader to be smiling throughout.
Rainbow Rowell
#25. I'll tell you what I was like as a child. I was a good person. I was high-spirited but I was a big reader.
Vivienne Westwood
#26. People who have had a stroke and are recovering from it love being read to ... especially by someone who is a good reader - it does help them to get better.
Ruth Rendell
#27. But, reader, there is no comfort in the word "farewell," even if you say it in French. "Farewell" is a word that,in any language, is full of sorrow. It is a word that promises absolutely nothing.
Kate DiCamillo
#28. Certainly not every reader has liked every one of my books, but I think that's a good thing because it means I'm not repeating myself.
Julia Quinn
#29. A good writer is an excellent reader.
Cyci Cade
#30. Really good writing, from my perspective, runs a lot like a visual on the screen. You need to create that kind of detail and have credibility with the reader, so the reader knows that you were really there, that you really experienced it, that you know the details. That comes out of seeing.
Ann Voskamp
#31. I'm not really a good reader. What I mean is, I think I'm not one of those people who can read a story and analyze it just like that.
Donald Ray Pollock
#32. I think, basically, what I'm good for is reading - a lot. I think I'll always be more of a reader than a writer, definitely. There are sooo many books in the world I haven't read, sometimes I feel as if they're all piled on top of my head weighing me down and saying, 'Hurry up.'
Helen Oyeyemi
#33. An unread book does nobody any good. Stories happen in the mind of a reader, not among symbols printed on a page.
Brandon Mull
#34. The only pressure I feel is to write good books. And to not replicate the previous book. Whether you have a thousand readers or a million readers it doesn't change the pressure. I never feel tempted to give the reader what I think the reader wants.
Jo Nesbo
#35. Of course a poem is a two-way street. No poem is any good if it doesn't suggest to the reader things from his own mind and recollection that he will read into it, and will add to what the poet has suggested. But I do think poetry readings are very important.
James Laughlin
#36. A good writer sees the world, not through his own eyes, but through his reader's mind.
Debasish Mridha
#37. I stroked a big red A on top of his paper. Looked at it for a moment or two, then added a big red +. Because it was good, and because his pain had evoked an emotional reaction in me, his reader. And isn't that what A+ writing is supposed to do? Evoke a response?
Stephen King
#38. He wrote as if he were the reader. It was also how he kept his writing from becoming too cute, which is to say, about him not the subject. Rook was a journalist but strove to be a storyteller, one who let his subjects speak for themselves and stayed out of their way as much as possible.
Richard Castle
#39. I'm more of a one-time reader. There are so many good books waiting to be read, I'll never go back and read one twice.
Deb Baker
#40. You have to invest yourself as a reader to be a good writer.
Saru Singhal
#41. For a book to be a good one a reader must have a connection with the characters and identify with them and have the story hold their attention and want more
Brenda Kay Winters
#42. It's good not only to realize that you can't please all of the people all of the time, but that you don't want to. There's a certain type of reader that you don't ever want to write for.
Dennis Lehane
#43. There is sometimes a feeling in crime fiction that good writing gets in the way of story. I have never felt that way. All you have is language. Why write beneath yourself? It's an act of respect for the reader as much as yourself.
John Connolly
#44. A good book changes for you every few years because you are in a different place in your own life. That's a sign of a good novel. Not only will two different readers get something different but so will a single reader at different points in his life.
Alan Lightman
#45. When we talk about good books, we often talk about good sentences, but what we rarely talk about is reader pleasure. Yet it is reader pleasure that is going to make a book break out into the kind of success that makes it into a household name.
Holly Black
#46. Both types of books - fiction and nonfiction - are a search for story. As a writer and a reader, there's nothing I crave more than a good story!
Susan Campbell Bartoletti
#47. I don't believe a good poet is very often deliberately obscure. A poet writes in a way necessary to him or her; the reader may then find the poem difficult.
Lydia Davis
#48. A good novel, one which entices the author as much as it beckons the reader.
W.J. Raymond
#49. I never tell students they cannot read a book they pick up, but I do guide them toward books that I think would be a good fit for them. I think of myself as a reading mentor-a reader who can help them find books they might like.
Donalyn Miller
#50. So long as you tell a story that falls within the fairly generous boundaries of the suspense novel, you're free to make the novel as good as you can. You're allowed to challenge the reader. You can experiment with voice and style.
Rodman Philbrick
#51. The good ending dismisses us with a touch of ceremony and throws a backward light of significance over the story just read. It makes it, as they say, or unmakes it. A weak beginning is forgettable, but the end of a story bulks in the reader's mind like the giant foot in a foreshortened photograph.
John Updike
#52. A good writer can set a thriller anywhere and make it convincing: the trick is to evoke the setting in such a way that it highlights the crime or unsettles the reader.
Garry Disher
#53. I read a lot, but at the same time I'm not a particularly good or diligent or discriminating reader. I go through maybe close to a thousand or more books a year, but a lot of times I'll only read bits and pieces of any one individual text.
Dan Chaon
#54. To be a good editor or a good writer, I think you really need to be a great reader first.
Karen Thompson Walker
#55. I think I'm a very good reader of poetry, but obviously, like everybody, I have a set of criteria for reading poems, and I'm not shy about presenting them, so if people ask for my critical response to a poem, I tell them what works and why, and what doesn't work and why.
Diane Wakoski
#56. There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader.
Stephen E. Ambrose
#57. A poem is good if it contains a new analogy and startles the reader out of the habit of treating words as counters.
T. E. Hulme
#58. Editing is simply the application of the common sense of any good reader. That's why, to be an editor, you have to be a reader. It's the number one qualification.
Robert Gottlieb
#59. The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story ... Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction.
Stephen King
#60. Uncertainty is a good thing at the end of a narrative. A simultaneous gain and loss captures the complexity of human existence. The way one sentence follows another, if we pay attention to syntax and rhythm, should express the final effect we want the narrative to have on a reader.
Lee Martin
#61. That's why editors and publishers will never be obsolete: a reader wants someone with taste and authority to point them in the direction of the good stuff, and to keep the awful stuff away from their door.
Walter Jon Williams
#62. The writer has to make pleasure for the reader - which, I think, is done by taking one's character's seriously and taking one's readers seriously -don't condescend or try to be tricky. Be a friend to your reader - I'd say that's a pretty good first step.
George Saunders
#63. A good reader is nearly as rare as a good writer. People bring their prejudices, whether friendly or adverse. They are lamp and spectacles, lighting and magnifying the page.
Robert Aris Willmott
#64. A good sentence is a key . It unlocks the mind of the reader.
Eric Hoffer
#65. A story has to be a good date, because the reader can stop at any time. Remember, readers are selfish and have no compulsion to be decent about anything.
Kurt Vonnegut
#66. a good vocabulary helps the reader understand the context of the message.
Jonathan Wallace
#67. Books whose topics I thoroughy depsise are accapteble because they often force the reader to think and to examine his own beliefs. In an age where most people are either blindly obedient or radical, exposing oneself to the ideas contained in even the most controversial of books is a good thing.
Tiffini Johnson
#68. If you find that the reader of popular romances
however uneducated a reader, however bad the romances
goes back to his old favourites again and again, then you have pretty good evidence that they are to him a sort of poetry.
C.S. Lewis
#69. If the moral good of fiction stems mainly from a habit of mind it inculcates in the reader, styles are neither good nor bad, and to describe some fictional enterprises as false is pointless.
Mary Gordon
#70. Type design moves at the pace of the most conservative reader. The good type-designer therefore realizes that, for a new font to be successful, it has to be so good that only very few recognize its novelty.
Stanley Morison
#71. Good writing takes advantage of a reader's expectations of where to go next. It accompanies the reader on a journey, or arranges the material in a logical sequence (general to specific, big to small, early to late), or tells a story with a narrative arc.
Steven Pinker
#72. A good quote is a beautiful inspirational spring branch in the reader's mind; it is a powerful propulsive force too, just like a wind! All men need winds!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#73. I'm quite a good reader of people; I like to meet people, and I can tell if they're lying or not, and I've certainly had interviews with people in this radio show I've done that swear they've seen things or have had bizarre experiences with creatures, and so I think they're telling the truth.
Rhys Darby
#74. If a book I've committed myself to review turns out to be 'disappointing' I make an effort to present it objectively to the reader, including a good number of excerpts from the text, so that the reader might form his or her own opinion independent of my own.
Joyce Carol Oates
#75. From early on there were two things that filled my life - music and storytelling, both of them provoked by my father. He was a jazz pianist and also a very good storyteller, an avid reader. He passed both those interests on to me.
Athol Fugard
#76. In general, teaching writing makes me a far better reader because there's so many ways to write a good sentence or a good story, and as a teacher I'm obliged to consider them all, rather than staying in the safety of my own tendencies.
Leni Zumas
#77. Though I am not an avid reader but I like romantic books. Love is a good thing. At times in love, there are disappointments ... one must not keep expectations. I like to be positive in love. I believe in happy endings.
Katrina Kaif
#78. 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
#79. I happen to think that a book is of extraordinary value if it gives the reader nothing more than a smile or two. It's perfectly okay to take a book, read it, have a good time, giggle and laugh - and turn off the TV. I love that.
Barbara Park
#80. The best answer I can give is that poetry is all about the effect it has on a reader, and Robert Frost was very, very good at that. If you're asking whatit MEANS that the line is repeated [and miles to go before I sleep] I'd have to say I don't know. It's stylistic. But the effect is pretty clear.
Haven Kimmel
#81. Every book tells a different story to the person who reads it. How they perceive that book will depend on who they are. A good book reflects the reader, as much as it illuminates the author's text.
Charles De Lint
#82. Corrupt fantasy points us, or forms us, in a consciousness that can lead to thinking that evil is good and good is evil. In the worst case, this may have long range effects, prompting the reader intuitively, subconsciously, to do evil while thinking they're doing good.
Michael O'Brien
#83. Good writing is a mirror of the mind where readers can see themselves again and again.
Debasish Mridha
#84. I do want to write about Jane Whitefield again, but only when I have a good enough idea - something I've figured out about her that's news and that's worth a reader's time.
Thomas Perry
#85. I was a very keen reader of science fiction, and during the time I was going to libraries, it was good, written by people who knew their science.
Terry Pratchett
#86. There's a difference between describing and evoking something. You can describe something and be quite clinical about it. To evoke it, you call it up in the reader. That's what writers do when they're good.
Margaret Atwood
#88. I was first a reader and without readers what would be the point in writing. For those of you who love a good story, thank you for being willing to read what we writerly folk create.
Michelle Dennis Evans
#89. For John le Carre, it was always who's betraying who: the hall-of-mirrors kind of thing. When you go back to the '30s, it's a case of good vs. evil, and no kidding. When I have a hero who believes France and Britain are on the right side, a reader is not going to question that.
Alan Furst
#90. I'm not a good reader. I had to take remedial reading in school. I was a slow reader and therefore it's tough for me to stay interested in things long enough, I've read, probably, since college maybe 10 books, which is disgusting.
Bruce Dern
#91. Lucky are you, reader, if you happen not to be of that sex to whom it is forbidden all good things; to whom liberty is denied; to whom almost all virtues are denied; lucky are you if you are one of those who can be wise without its being a crime.
Marie De Gournay
#92. The sign of a good novel is what it can cause its reader to see, even if this lies beyond the author's own vision.
John Gaddis
#93. A good writer refuses to be socialized. He insists on his own version of things, his own consciousness. And by doing so he draws the reader's eye from its usual groove into a new way of seeing things.
Bill Barich
#94. She was not a writer herself but she was a very good reader, passionate and eclectic in her tastes, and my father had great faith in her judgments.
David Benioff
#95. [from a reader] Whenever I feel myself resenting someone, I reach out. I have made good friends that way.
Amy Dickinson
#96. What you're trying to do when you write is to crowd the reader out of his own space and occupy it with yours, in a good cause. You're trying to take over his sensibility and deliver an experience that moves from mere information.
Robert Stone
#97. A good story defies the reader's expectations, and in doing so, brings them satisfaction.
Thomas Maltman
#98. To write a novel is to dream a story and write it down on the page. That's why the power of a really good story is one of true magic. Good stories engage the reader utterly in the writer's dream so the dream becomes theirs, too.
Wendy J. Dunn
#99. It's not enough to know what all the words mean," he continued. "A good reader starts to see what an entire book is trying to say. And then a good reader will have something to say in return.
Paul Acampora
