Sleepless themselves to give their readers sleep. [ Pope ]
Many books owe their success to the good memories of their authors and the bad memories of their readers. [ Colton ]
A good book is fruitful of other books; it perpetuates its fame from age to age, and makes eras in the lives of its readers. [ Alcott ]
Was there ever anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe and the Pilgrim's Progress? [ Dr. Johnson ]
With many readers brilliancy of style passes for affluence of thought; they mistake buttercups in the grass for immeasurable mines of gold under ground. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
As a man may be eating all day, and for want of digestion is never nourished, so these endless readers may cram themselves in vain with intellectual food. [ Dr. I. Watts ]
Many readers judge of the power of a book by the shock it gives their feelings, - as some savage tribes determine the power of their muskets by their recoil; that being considered best which fairly prostrates the purchaser. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]
Novels do not force their fair readers to sin, they only instruct them how to sin; the consequences of which are fully detailed, and not in a way calculated to seduce any but weak minds; few of their heroines are happily disposed of. [ Zimmermann ]
There are three classes of readers; some enjoy without judgment; others judge without enjoyment; and some there are who judge while they enjoy, and enjoy while they judge. The latter class reproduces the work of art on which it is engaged. Its numbers are very small. [ Goethe ]
Novels are sweets. All people with healthy literary appetites love them; almost all women; a vast number of clever, hard-headed men. Judges, bishops, chancellors, mathematicians, are notorious novel readers, as well as young boys and girls, and their kind, tender mothers. [ Thackeray ]
Oratory is the huffing and blustering spoiled child of a semi-barbarous age. The press is the foe of rhetoric, but the friend of reason; and the art of declamation has been sinking in value from the moment that speakers were foolish enough to publish, and readers wise enough to read. [ Colton ]
Writers of novels and romances in general bring a double loss on their readers, - they rob them both of their time and money; representing men, manners and things that never have been, nor are likely to be; either confounding or perverting history and truth, inflating the mind, or committing violence upon the understanding. [ Mary Wortley Montagu ]
Learn to be good readers, which is perhaps a more difficult thing than you imagine. Learn to be discriminative In your reading; to read faithfully and with your best attention, all kinds of things which you have a real interest in, - a real, not an imaginary - and which you find to be really fit for what you are engaged in. [ Carlyle ]
If there were no readers there certainly would be no writers. Clearly, therefore, the existence of writers depends upon the existence of readers; and, of course, as the cause must be antecedent to the effect, readers existed before writers. Yet, on the other hand, if there were no writers there could be no readers, so it should appear that writers must be antecedent to readers. [ Paul Chatfield, M.D ]
I put myself, my experiences, my observations, my heart and soul into my work. I press my soul upon the white paper. The writer who does this may have any style, he or she will find the hearts of their readers. Writing a book involves, not a waste, but a great expenditure of vital force. Yet I can assure you I have written the last lines of most of my stories with tears. The characters of my own creation had become dear to me. I could not bear to bid them good-bye and send them away from me into the wide world. [ Amelia E. Barr, The Art of Authorship, 1891 ]
The first class of readers may be compared to an hour-glass, their reading being as the sand; it runs in and runs out, and leaves not a vestige behind. A second class resembles a sponge, which imbibes everything, and returns it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtier. A third class is like a jelly-bag, which allows all that is pure to pass away, and retains only the refuse and dregs. The fourth class may be compared to the slave of Golconda, who, casting aside all that is worthless, preserves only the pure gems. [ Coleridge ]