Teaching Plato in Palestine shows how philosophical thinking can illuminate important topics-in particular, the problem of finding ways to engage people with… — Gary Gutting Copy Share Image
Readers must be given room to bring their own emotions to a piece so crammed with emotional content; the writer must tenaciously… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
I will tell you a little secret about archaeologists, dear Reader. They all pretend t be very high-minded. They claim that their… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
I hate those endless descriptions of a heroine's physical attributes . . . it really bothers me how in books it seems… — E. Lockhart Copy Share Image
The best books come from someplace deep inside.... Become emotionally involved. If you don't care about your characters, your readers won't either. — Judy Blume Copy Share Image
Why, after all, should readers never be harrowed? Surely there is enough happiness in life without having to go to books for… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
“[T]o read was precisely to enter another world, which was not the reader's own, and come back refreshed, ready to bear with… — Susan Sontag Copy Share Image
Seán Manchester is, unsurprisingly, very well read in both classical and more recent sources on vampires and vampirism, and cites them with… — Joe McNally Copy Share Image
To read great books does not mean one becomes ‘bookish’; it means that something of the terrible insight of Dostoyevsky, of the… — John Cowper Powys Copy Share Image
It is easier for the reader to judge, by a thousand times, than for the writer to invent. The writer must summon… — Fay Weldon Copy Share Image
A story should be managed so that it should suggest interesting things to the reader instead of the author's doing all the… — Sarah Orne Jewett Copy Share Image
The reader becomes God, for all textual purposes. I see your eyes glazing over, so I'll hush. — David Foster Wallace Copy Share Image
Don't hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident. . . . Every little qualifier whittles away some… — William Zinsser Copy Share Image
Noting that Huckleberry Finn was originally both valued and reviled because it shows the reader that the accepted moral code and social… — Robert Vaughan Copy Share Image
A reader, encountering a sentence about a barking dog, would have to dwell on why that choice was made at that moment.… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
When I was a teenager, I was a voracious reader of crime fiction, but only contemporary books. — Michael Connelly Copy Share Image
It is a little out of touch to presume that someone wants to follow your every observation and insight over the course… — Christopher Bollen Copy Share Image
Since I hold no judgments against my characters, no matter how heinous they might seem, I present them as real people with… — Chris Abani Copy Share Image
There must be courage; there must be no awe. There must be criticism, for humor, to my mind, is encapsulated in criticism.… — Dorothy Parker Copy Share Image
[Michael] Chabon is arguing in favor of what is at the same time an old-fashioned and very forward-thinking opening up - of… — Emily Barton Copy Share Image
We really set out in all our books to say something. Every one is an effort to bring the reader over and… — Emma McLaughlin Copy Share Image
There's a unique bond of trust between readers and authors that I don't believe exists in any other art form; as a… — Dan Simmons Copy Share Image
My purpose is to entertain and please myself. I feel that if I am entertained, then there will be enough other readers… — Elmore Leonard Copy Share Image
Without a reader, I cannot write. It's like a kiss: they cannot be done alone. — John Cheever Copy Share Image