A Quote by John M. Ford

Sometimes the reader will decide something else than the author's intent; this is certainly true of attempts to empirically decipher reality. — © John M. Ford
Sometimes the reader will decide something else than the author's intent; this is certainly true of attempts to empirically decipher reality.
It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. Generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way; and we want downright facts at present more than anything else.
To be true to a play, you can't add something that takes away from the author's intent.
Reality is a projection of consciousness, so if you believe - more than just think - but believe, subliminally, that something is true, it will become true because you will make micro-decisions based on the reality that you have faith in.
the labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader.
I decide my future. I decide what I want to do. Nobody else. If I decide this will be my last year, maybe it is. If I decide it will be my last contract, I decide that. Nobody else. So I will decide when the moment is there.
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.
The so-called paradoxes of an author, to which a reader takes exception, often exist not in the author's book at all, but rather in the reader's head.
Illusion doesn't mean that something is not real. Illusion simply means that something is less real than something else. This life and this world certainly exist - who is to say the reality of the dream is not real?
For an author just starting out, you've got to deliver the goods every year or sooner or people will forget you or you will lose momentum. There is a contract that exists between author and reader.
People make decisions that may have one intent and yet are somehow perverted into something else. And sometimes it's because of design. Sometimes it's because of happenstance. But very often, it's mysterious to them.
So this is reality, this forgiveness, this reconciliation, is true for everybody. Paul insisted that when Jesus died on the cross, he was reconciling "all things, in heaven and on earth, to God." All things, everywhere. ...This reality then isn't something we make come true about ourselves by doing something. It is already true. Our choice is to live in this new reality or cling to a reality of our own making.
The author always knows more than the reader does at the start of a novel, and gradually, they share that knowledge with the reader - that's storytelling.
There is no way reality can be prevented from flowing the way it flows. It is our vain attempts to force it to flow in the service of our imaginary needs which sets us in painful conflict with our- selves and nature. You are not separate from the flowing reality; you are that flowing reality. See this and you will not see any- thing else which conflicts with it. You will be what you see.
What is a novel? I say: an invented story. At the same time a story which, though invented has the power to ring true. True to what? True to life as the reader knows life to be or, it may be, feels life to be. And I mean the adult, the grown-up reader. Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales, and we do not want the fantastic and the impossible. So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the adult tests of reality.
For me the true business of photography is to capture a bit of reality (whatever that is) on film...if, later, the reality means something to someone else, so much the better.
Language can't describe reality. Literature has no stable reference, no real meaning. Each reader's interpretation is equally valid, more important than the author's intention. In fact, nothing in life has meaning. Reality is subjective. Values and truths are subjective. Life itself is a kind of illusion. Blah, blah, blah, let's have another scotch.
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