A Quote by Roald Dahl

I don't care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Roald Dahl

Quote Topics

Book Care Don't Care Hates I Don't Care Just Long Reader Stories

Quote Author

Roald Dahl
British - Novelist
September 13, 1916 - November 23, 1990

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

Samuel Johnson

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

A man who finishes a book is always alone when he finishes it.

Nora Ephron

My goal is to produce as rich and historical an experience for the reader as I possibly can, to the point where when somebody finishes reading the book, he or she emerges from it with a sense of having lived in the past.

Erik Larson

Long before I was a writer, when I was just a haphazard reader and a dreamer of stories, I learnt about an influential book by Harold Bloom. 'The Anxiety of Influence', published in 1973 when I was five years old, is taken up with the terrifying influence of poets on each other.

Andrew O'Hagan

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

But I care about the reader, and I'm trying to keep the reader's attention for as long as I can.

Jeffrey Eugenides

My weak suit is whatever each reader hates about each book.

Mat Johnson

I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and reading even before that. My mom still has stories that I wrote when I was in kindergarten. I was a reader and a re-reader. That's the main reason I became a writer.

Linda Sue Park

There really is no difference in the actual writing or plotting. I choose to tell different stories for the younger reader and, of course, I would never put sex and extreme violence in a YA book. But writing for adults and children requires the same care and attention.

Michael Scott

The book is finished by the reader. A good novel should invite the reader in and let the reader participate in the creative experience and bring their own life experiences to it, interpret with their own individual life experiences. Every reader gets something different from a book and every reader, in a sense, completes it in a different way.

Alan Lightman

Once an author finishes a poem, he becomes merely another reader. I may remember what I intended to put into a text, but what matters is what a reader actually finds there which is usually something both more and less than the poet planned.

Dana Gioia

Books are just dead words on paper and it is the readers who bring the stories alive. Previously, writers wrote a book and sent it out into the world. A couple of months after publication letters from readers might arrive. And, leaving aside the professional reviews, it is really the reader's opinions that the writer needs. They vote for a book - and a writer - with their hard earned cash every time they go into a bookstore (or online - that's my age showing!) and buy a book.

Michael Scott

Ranganathan's 5 Laws: Books are for use. Books are for all. Every book its reader, or every reader his book. Save the time of the reader. A library is a growing organism.

S. R. Ranganathan

The first paragraph of my book must get me my reader. The last paragraph of a chapter must compel my reader to turn the page. The last paragraph of my book must ensure that my reader looks out for my next book.