A Quote by John Jeremiah Sullivan

At 'GQ,' there was never a temptation to pander or preach to the choir because I had no concept of who the reader was or what that reader might want.

John Jeremiah Sullivan

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Because Choir Concept Had Might Never Preach Reader Temptation Want

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John Jeremiah Sullivan
American - Writer
Born: 1974

At GQ, there was never a temptation to pander or preach to the choir because I had no concept of who the reader was or what that reader might want.

John Jeremiah Sullivan

Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth.

Marcel Proust

Every reader of your ad is interested, else he would not be a reader. You are dealing with someone willing to listen. Then do your level best. That reader, if you lose him now, May never again be a reader

Claude C. Hopkins

I am always considering the reader. Although this is admittedly kind of odd: Which reader? On what day? In what mood? For me, that "reader" is actually just me, if I had never read the story before.

George Saunders

As soon as I start to write I'm very aware, I'm trying to be aware that a reader just might well pick up this poem, a stranger. So when I'm writing - and I think that this is important for all writers - I'm trying to be a writer and a reader back and forth. I write two lines or three lines. I will immediately stop and turn into a reader instead of a writer, and I'll read those lines as if I had never seen them before and as if I had never written them.

Billy Collins

Probably, subliminally, I think of the reader as a kind of collaborator. I don't want to say something for the reader that the reader could have said for himself.

Thomas McGuane

When you're a war correspondent, the reader is for you because the reader is saying, 'Gee, I wouldn't want to be doing that.' They're on your side.

P. J. O'Rourke

How much he was shaped by being in the hospital so much as a kid. Because he was sick, he was a reader, and because he was a reader, Kennedy had heroes. Because he had heroes, he went into politics. [Kennedy liked Sir Walter Scott, King Arthur's knights, and biographies of political leaders.] If he hadn't been sick, he might have been like everybody else in the family, a jock.

Chris Matthews

Compose aloud: poetry is a sound. Never explain- your reader is as smart as you. Your reader is not just any reader, but is the rare one with ears in his head.

Basil Bunting

I have a total responsibility to the reader. The reader has to trust me and never feel betrayed. There's a double standard between writers and readers. Readers can be unfaithful to writers anytime they like, but writers must never ever be unfaithful to the readers. And it's appropriate, because the writer is getting paid and the reader isn't.

Jonathan Santlofer

In my couple of books, including Going Clear, the book about Scientology, I thought it seemed appropriate at the end of the book to help the reader frame things. Because we've gone through the history, and there's likely conflictual feelings in the reader's mind. The reader may not agree with me, but I don't try to influence the reader's judgment. I know everybody who picks this book up already has a decided opinion. But my goal is to open the reader's mind a little bit to alternative narratives.

Lawrence Wright

Before you can become a writer, you have to be a reader, and a reader of everything, at that. To the best of my recollection, I became a reader at the age of 10 and have never stopped. Like many authors, I read all sorts of books all the time, and it is amazing how the mind fills up.

Terry Pratchett

Dear though the reader might be, I'd be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.

Vikram Seth

Are you a reader? If you aren't a reader, you might as well forget trying to be a writer.

Wallace Stegner

Don't try to anticipate an ideal reader - or any reader. He/she might exist - but is reading someone else.

Joyce Carol Oates

If you do a serious presidential bio, you want to supply the reader with maximum material because otherwise you're offending the reader. A president for many people is a serious thing and they want to know everything.

Amity Shlaes

A Quote by John Jeremiah Sullivan

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