400 Quotes About Readers

The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader. I know people who read without hearing the sentence sounds and they were the fastest readers. Eye readers we call them. They get the meaning by glances. But they are bad readers because they miss the best part of what a good writer puts into his work.

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.

Hey, Geekoid!" yelled Duncan Dougal, "Why do you read so much? Don't you know how to watch TV?

Of all books printed, probably not more than half are ever read. Many are embalmed in public libraries; many go into private quarters to fill spaces; many are glanced at and put away...scarcely opened until the fire needs kindling. The most ardent book-lovers are not always the greatest readers; indeed, the rabid bibliomaniac seldom reads at all. To him books are as ducats to the miser, something to be hoarded and not employed... So pleasant it is to buy book; so tiresome to utilize them.

The way a book is read- which is to say,the qualities a reader brings to a book- can have as much to do with its worth as anything the author puts into it.

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.

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.

The reality of a serious writer is a reality of many voices, some of them belonging to the writer, some of them belonging to the world of readers at large.

Overhyped books are the empty calories of the literary world.