A Quote by John Keats

We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author. — © John Keats
We read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.
When I read a novel that I really like, I feel as if I am in direct, personal communication with the author. I feel as if the author and I are on the same wavelength mentally, that we have a lot in common with each other, and that we could have an interesting conversation, or even a friendship, if the circumstances permitted it. When the novel comes to an end, I feel a certain letdown, a loss of contact. It is natural to want to recapture that feeling by reading other works by the same author, or by corresponding with him/her directly.
I won't eat past when I'm full. I think that's the problem some people have, they like a dish so much that they'll eat until it's completely gone and feel sick after. Me, if I feel full, ready, comfortable, I'll stop.
It's true you never know the full depth of a parent's touch in your life until they're gone. Even if you cared for them in their old age, there's never a way to prepare yourself for the death of a parent.
In a sense, one can never read the book that the author originally wrote, and one can never read the same book twice.
I never read anything concerning my work. I feel that criticism is a letter to the public which the author, since it is not directed to him, does not have to open and read.
Sometimes when we read the words of those who have been more than conquerors, we feel almost despondent. I feel that I shall never be like that. But they won through step by step, by little bits of wills, little denials of self, little inward victories, by faithfulness in very little things. They became what they are. No one sees these little hidden steps. They only see the accomplishment, but even so, those small steps were taken. There is no sudden triumph, no spiritual maturity. That is the work of the moment.
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.
I seem to be one of the few people in journalism who never worked or wrote for the 'Boston Phoenix.' I certainly read and admired it, and feel the same general malaise at news that it is gone.
Exactly the same with dancing, you can't dance until you've learnt steps, the things your feet can do.
Gone are the days when a publisher could take out an ad, count on a few reviews, and have an author do a couple of signings. Nowadays, readers want to feel a connection with an author.
[D]on't ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologize to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read.
Here are poems from a new generation of writers who honor the magnetic fields of the real; who feel and think with full and open-eyed passion; who focus heat as the magnifying glass focuses sun: until the paper catches. Read them.
Never write on a subject until you have read yourself full of it.
Sometimes leadership is planting trees under whose shade you'll never sit. It may not happen fully till after I'm gone. But I know that the steps we're taking are the right steps.
You can put things in prose and understand them one way, and then there's understanding it by knowing how it feels. Things aren't real until you can feel that, until you can empathize with them. That's what protagonists do in books.
The fundamental steps of expansion that will open a person, over time, to the full flowering of his or her individuality are the same for both genders. But men and women are rarely in the same place struggling with the same questions at the same age.
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