A Quote by Greil Marcus

My ideal reader is somebody who trips over a copy of my book on the sidewalk; then they pick it up and read as they walk. Somebody who comes in knowing nothing, caring nothing, but responds to the story.

Greil Marcus

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Book Caring Copy Ideal Knowing Knowing Nothing Nothing Over Pick Read Reader Sidewalk Somebody Story Then Trips Up Walk

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Greil Marcus
American - Author
Born: 1945

My conception of my ideal reader has expanded quite a lot as I've matured: Ultimately when I think of my ideal reader, it's someone who's not sitting down with the intention of automatically arguing with the book: somebody who's going to give me enough slack to tell my story.

Paolo Bacigalupi

An author is somebody who writes a story. It doesn't matter if you're a kid or if you're a grown-up, it doesn't matter if the book gets published and lots of people get to read it, or if you make just one copy and you share that book with one friend.

Jarrett J. Krosoczka

Perfect is not on the menu. Nobody is going to be your ideal candidate. You can't dream somebody up out of nothing that's going to be the perfect candidate, so you do have to pick between a series of bad choices.

Margaret Hoover

I was a slow and lazy reader as a kid. 'The Prince and the Pauper' was the only non-school book I would read, over and over, between television, records and radio, until I picked up my aunt's copy of 'In Cold Blood' and she didn't ask for it back.

Darryl Pinckney

There was a guy with mental illness in the middle of the street just yelling and hollering. I have a number that I can call - it's not 911 - to tell them, "You need to help this man get out of the street." But you have to be that person, you have to pick up the phone, you have to do it; you can't just walk by and act like they're not people. They're somebody's kid, somebody's dad, somebody's brother.

Lori Petty

I look for the dark story, where something secret was done. I read and read and pick up the trail of a true story. I use nothing but true stories. They are so much better than phony ones.

Alan Furst

That's one of the many things about having the bookstore that I adore. I can walk into the store and say to somebody, "I'm glad you're reading this book" or "I'm glad you're getting this book" or "Don't get that book. I read that book and hated that book. Let's get you this book instead."

Ann Patchett

Walk into a room, knowing you are somebody, somebody special. Don't ever let them smash that or pull you down.

Arthur Mitchell

My husband, William Sutcliffe, the writer, is my first reader and in many ways my most important. That initial reading of the manuscript is crucial and irreplaceable and you want them to approach it as someone in a bookshop might, not knowing much about it. So I've got into this pattern of not telling Will anything about the book I'm working on. He often knows nothing about the book I'm working on at all until I give him the whole manuscript and ask him to read it. The book I'm working on at the moment he knows nothing about. No one does.

Maggie O'Farrell

I've always been an avid reader. If I don't have a book in the car, I'll stop and pick one up just to have something to read. I don't even remember learning to read.

Janis Ian

I was somebody who was not athletic. I was highly imaginative; I loved to read, and I loved nothing more than being in a story... I didn't want to play ball; I wanted to imagine something and read something.

Julianne Moore

The best advice I can give on this is, once it's done, to put it away until you can read it with new eyes. Finish the short story, print it out, then put it in a drawer and write other things. When you're ready, pick it up and read it, as if you've never read it before. If there are things you aren't satisfied with as a reader, go in and fix them as a writer: that's revision.

Neil Gaiman

You need to have a reader's sympathy in order to accomplish anything. It's like at a reading, I find it's better to read something funny than to read something tragic. It just goes over better because you have a finite amount of time with somebody. Of course, in a book, you have a lot of time. But you still do want to make a certain impression right when you begin.

Jonathan Safran Foer

I one time hooked up with somebody off an app who gave me an autographed copy of a book he wrote.

Scott Evans

I revise the manuscript till I can't read it any longer, then I get somebody to type it. Then I revise the typing. Then it's retyped again. Then there's a third typing, which is the final one. Nothing should then remain that offends the eye.

Robert Graves

I went to work in 1962, and by '64 I was writing all the time, every night and every weekend. It didn't occur to me that, having read nothing and knowing nothing, I was in no position to write a book.

Peter Carey

A Quote by Greil Marcus

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