A Quote by P. J. O'Rourke
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.
Related Quotes
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
For me, one of the reasons I love this form - the personal essay form - is because it's a way of forming an intimacy with the reader. What I'm saying to the reader is: I'm going to tell you something; I'm going to be generous; I'm going to offer. The confession, on the other hand, is sort of an imposition because you're asking the reader to forgive you or somehow exonerate you or say, "Hey, I'm even worse." But what I'm interested in doing is being generous and offering a perspective or suggesting a way of thinking about something.
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.
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.
It wasn't something I started off in my teens or early twenties thinking I want to be a war correspondent. I still don't think of myself as a war correspondent. I'm not. I'm a foreign correspondent.
Any writer who gives a reader a pleasurable experience is doing every other writer a favor because it will make the reader want to read other books. I am all for it.
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.
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.
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.
Surprise keeps the reader awake. The only alternative is to continue saying what the reader is expecting. What fun is that?
Perhaps it's worth saying again: One reader's discomfort should never stand in the way of another reader's survival.
With a 660-page book, you don't read every sentence aloud. I am terrified for the poor guy doing the audio book. But I do because I think we hear them aloud even if it's not an audio book. The other goofy thing I do is I examine the shape of the words but not the words themselves. Then I ask myself, "Does it look like what it is?" If it's a sequence where I want to grab the reader and not let the reader go then it needs to look dense. But at times I want the reader to focus on a certain word or a certain image and pause there.
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.
Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, and active and creative reader is a rereader.
The first rule is you have to create a reality that makes the reader want to come back and see what happens next. The way I tried to do it, I'd create characters that the reader could instantly recognize, and hopefully bond with, and put them through situations that keep the reader on the edge of their seat.
We must be forewarned that only rarely does a text easily lend itself to the reader's curiosity... the reading of a text is a transaction between the reader and the text, which mediates the encounter between the reader and writer. It is a composition between the reader and the writer in which the reader "rewrites" the text making a determined effort not to betray the author's spirit.
Related Authors
Bill Maher Quotes
American
Comedian
Craig Ferguson Quotes
Scottish
Comedian
David Letterman Quotes
American
Comedian
Demetri Martin Quotes
American
Comedian
Ellen DeGeneres Quotes
American
Comedian
George Carlin Quotes
American
Comedian
Jay Leno Quotes
American
Comedian
Jim Gaffigan Quotes
American
Comedian
Jimmy Fallon Quotes
American
Comedian
Joan Rivers Quotes
American
Comedian
Mitch Hedberg Quotes
American
Comedian
Robin Williams Quotes
American
Comedian
Rodney Dangerfield Quotes
American
Comedian
Stephen Colbert Quotes
American
Comedian
Steve Martin Quotes
American
Comedian
Steven Wright Quotes
American
Comedian