Books Quote by Susan Orlean

I tend to think that the onus is on the writer to engage the reader, that the reader should not be expected to need…

— Lorin Stein

I always like to entertain, first of all, and if the readers take anything away from it that helps them with their own lives,…

— Cecelia Ahern

The connection that I have with my readers makes me very happy, and gives meaning to the strange profession of writing

— Isabel Allende

You have to have passion for a subject to write about it. You can't expect your readers to feel any excitement if it's nothing…

— Leonard Mlodinow

A writer has to surprise himself to be worth reading.

— Bernard Malamud

“Good literature boils down to two things: How interesting is the story you are telling, and how interesting is your telling.”

— Hillel F. Damron

A great literary work can be completely, completely unpredictable. Which can sometimes make them very hard to read, but it gives them a great…

— Yann Martel

When you do something a little bit extreme or weird, it helps make it more interesting and more amenable to being written about.

— Robin Sloan

A life spent largely among books, and in the exercise of a literary profession, has very obvious drawbacks, as a subject-matter, when one comes…

— Mary Augusta Ward

It is as true for the writer as for the reader that any novel worth its ink should be an experience first and foremost—not…

— David Wroblewski

I find it satisfying and intellectually stimulating to work with the intensity, brevity, balance and word play of the short story.

— Annie Proulx

“Perhaps a book becomes a classic in proportion to how broadly its characters can be scavenged, how many readers find within it something they…

— Janna Malamud Smith