Books Quote by Umberto Eco

A novel is a machine for generating interpretations.

— Umberto Eco

The author may not interpret. But he must tell why and how he wrote his book.

— Umberto Eco

I really believe that readers are smart and sophisticated enough to realize that the author is not the narrator of his novels.

— Bret Easton Ellis

“A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I…

— Mark Twain

“Without readers, an author's voice is only imagination.”

— Dale Amidei

No man writes a book without meaning something, though he may not have the faculty of writing consequentially and expressing his meaning.

— Joseph Addison

A writer never reads his work. For him, it is the unreadable, a secret, and he cannot remain face to face with it. A…

— Maurice Blanchot

A novelist can never be his own reader, except when he is ridding his manuscript of syntax errors, repetitions, or the occasional superfluous paragraph.

— Patrick Modiano

If the writer were more like a reader, he’d be a reader, not a writer. It’s as uncomplicated as that.

— Julian Barnes

Each reader reads only what is already within himself. The book is only a sort of optical instrument which the writer offers to the…

— Marcel Proust

“By applying their observational abilities along with full appliance of their logic and creative powers, writers attempt to create mental maps to share with…

— Kilroy J. Oldster

It's a challenge of to write a narrator who is doing something that is really unlikeable and morally questionable. A lot of times, you…

— Alissa Nutting