If you are careful about the content and writing style, readers will not feel that you are in a hurry.
Readers have actually changed the way I've done things, changed the course of my career even, about four or five times. Just from reader feedback.
It's been a great place to get in touch with what people are really thinking. And to make contact with readers and other writers. Egalitarian, wide open, like the Wild West!
I used to be married to a woman who pursued every spiritual trend with tremendous passion and dragged me along. I don't believe in anything. I'd seen mediums and readers.
In the worst memoirs, you can feel the author justifying himself - forgiving himself - in every paragraph. In the best memoirs, the author is tougher on him- or herself than his or her readers will ever be.
If I'm going to be a pessimist, then I should just stop writing for young people because that's too heavy a burden to put on young readers. But also, I get to meet with people who have waded through horrible things, and they get up every morning, and they try to do their best.
Every so often I find some poems that are too good for the readers of The Atlantic because they are a little too involved with the nature of poetry, as such.
There's a kind of funny gap between 14 and 20 when young people don't read very much. Nobody really knows what to do about it, although we've tried to reach these dropout readers with the 'young adult' book.
I write because something inner and unconscious forces me to. That is the first compulsion. The second is one of ethical and moral duty. I feel responsible to tell stories that inspire readers to consider more deeply who they are.
That the Op-Ed page is very important in readers' and the nation's perception of the Times, the perception of its editorial positions, and of its implicit editorial positions as expressed by the publisher's choice of people who are given the freedom to write opinion columns.
Every publisher or agent I've ever met told me the same thing - that Irish readers don't want to read about the bad old days of the Troubles; neither do the English and Americans - they only want to read about the Ireland of The Quiet Man, when red-haired widows are riding bicycles and everyone else is on a horse.
Like many readers, I am continually in search of books that allow me to lose myself in an entirely unique universe.
One can't write for all readers. A poet cannot write for people who don't like poetry.
I actually really suck at naming books, so lots of years ago, readers were sending in their ideas for titles, and what we realized is that they were smarter than us. So we thought, Hey, go for it. So now we have a contest every year.
I know what the attitudes of the readers are: These are guys who love women and respect women.
I believe my readers are crazy about their parents and want to be just like them when they grow up.
At first blush, it seems odd that loser lit books are rejected initially, then go on to be fiercely loved by legions of readers. This apparent contradiction might be due to the fact that if they didn't screw up their lives, most losers would be the kind of power-elite, Type A go-getters whom readers love to hate.
I think it's important that readers know that not every celebrity is a freak.
Readers are hungry to have their stories in the world, to see mirrors of themselves if the stories are about people like them, and to have windows if the stories are about people who have been historically absent in literature.
When you're free of editorial control, you owe it to yourself to obtain feedback from friends and readers. Some take those criticisms to heart and incorporate it into their work, and some ignore them.
When you're writing two books a year, you really need some time off and don't want to use that down time for touring. I do like talking with readers, though; they can tell you important stuff.
As writers we must, from our very opening sentence, speak with authority to our readers.
I dislike literary jargon and never use it. Criticism has only one function and that is to help readers read and understand literature. It is not a science, it is an aid to art.
Shirley Jackson enjoyed notoriety and commercial success within her lifetime, and yet it still hardly seems like enough for a writer so singular. When I meet readers and other writers of my generation, I find that mentioning her is like uttering a holy name.
Journalists in newspapers and in many magazines are not permitted to be subjective and tell their readers what they think. Journalists have got to follow a very strict formulaic line, and here we come, these non-fiction writers, these former journalists who are using all the techniques that journalists are pretty much not allowed to use.
I have been a reader of Science Fiction and Fantasy for a long time, since I was 11 or 12 I think, so I understand it and I'm not at all surprised that readers of the genre might enjoy my books.
Writers of novels and romance in general bring a double loss to their readers; robbing them of their time and money; representing men, manners, and things, that never have been, or are likely to be.
As a lifelong romance reader, it's always satisfying to get to talk to other romance readers!
When I published my first novel, 'Slammed,' I included lyrics at the beginning of each chapter from one of my favorite bands, The Avett Brothers. The overwhelmingly positive response from readers to those lyrics really surprised me.
This is the most intimate relationship between literature and its readers: they treat the text as a part of themselves, as a possession.
The columnists have a very personal relationship with their readers, and the readers deserve to hear directly from the columnists.
I actually have a young readers' series that I wanna do, kind of in the same lane as a Harry Potter or Narnia or Twilight. I want to write stuff like that.
A conventional good read is usually a bad read, a relaxing bath in what we know already. A true good read is surely an act of innovative creation in which we, the readers, become conspirators.
There is a neurologist, a woman over at Harvard who wanted me to come talk to them, and in France I have a lot of readers in the sciences. I can't tell you why.
I have the most loyal readers in the world.
I'll always be grateful for 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.' It brought me many, many, readers.
