E Reader Quotes & Sayings

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon. — E.L. Doctorow

The world is changing, but I am not changing with it. There is no e-reader or Kindle in my future. My philosophy is simple: Certain things are perfect the way they are. The sky, the Pacific Ocean, procreation and the Goldberg Variations all fit this bill, and so do books. Books are sublimely visceral, emotionally evocative objects that constitute a perfect delivery systemBooks that we can touch; books that we can smell; books that we can depend on. Books that make us believe, for however short a time, that we shall all live happily ever after. — Joe Queenan

People in a novel can be understood completely by the reader, if the novelist can be understood completely by the reader, if the novelist wishes; their inner as well as their outer life can be exposed. — E. M. Forster

In a sense, there's a great truth to that, but, also I was a great reader. — A.E. Van Vogt

In daily life we never understand each other, neither complete clairvoyance nor complete confessional exists. We know each other approximately, by external signs, and these serve well enough as a basis for society and even for intimacy. But people in a novel can be understood completely by the reader, if the novelist wishes; their inner as well as their outer life can be exposed. And this is why they often seem more definite than characters in history, or even our own friends; we have been told all about them that can be told; even if they are imperfect or unreal they do not contain any secrets, whereas our friends do and must, mutual secrecy being one of the conditions of life upon this globe. — E. M. Forster

A reader's eyes may glaze over after they take in a couple of paragraphs about Canadian tariffs or political developments in Pakistan; a story about the reader himself or his neighbors will be read to the end. — Donald E. Graham

An e-mail from a reader says that liberals like to take the moral high ground, even though their own moral relativism means that there is no moral high ground. — Thomas Sowell

Literature for me ... tries to heal the harm done by stories. (How much harm? Most of the atrocities of history have been created by stories, e.g., the Jews killed Jesus.) I follow Sartre that the freedom the author claims for herself must be shared with the reader. So that would mean that literature is stories that put themselves at the disposal of readers who want to heal themselves. Their healing power lies in their honesty, the freshness of their vision, the new and unexpected things they show, the increase in power and responsibility they give the reader. — Geoff Ryman

He's infuriated that his e-reader allows him to only know the percentage of a book he's read, not the number of pages. This, he thinks, is 92 percent stupid. — Meg Wolitzer

When I began to do a little public speaking, one of the questions I heard most often was, "What good is science fiction to Black people?" I was usually asked this by a Black person ...
What good is science fiction's thinking about the present, the future, and the past? What good is its tendency to warn or to consider alternative ways of thinking and doing? What good is its examination of the possible effects of science and technology, or social organization and political direction? At its best, science fiction stimulates imagination and creativity. It gets reader and writer off the beaten track, off the narrow, narrow footpath of what "everyone" is saying, doing, thinking
whoever "everyone" happens to be this year.
And what good is all this to Black people? — Octavia E. Butler

I may be permitted, kind reader, to doubt whether you have ever been enclosed in a glass bottle, unless some vivid dream has teased you with such magical mishaps. — E.T.A. Hoffmann

I'm never going to complain about receiving free early copies of books, because clearly there's nothing to complain about, but it does introduce a rogue element into one's otherwise carefully plotted reading schedule ...
Being a reader is sort of like being president, except reading involves fewer state dinners, usually. You have this agenda you want to get through, but you get distracted by life events, e.g., books arriving in the mail/World War III, and you are temporarly deflected from your chosen path. — Nick Hornby

Many references have been made in this book to 'the reader,' who has been much in the news. It is now necessary to warn you that your concern for the reader must be pure: you must sympathize with the reader's plight (most readers are in trouble about half the time) but never seek to know the reader's wants. Your whole duty as a writer is to please and satisfy yourself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one. Start sniffing the air, or glancing at the Trend Machine, and you are as good as dead, although you may make a nice living. — E.B. White

I love the book. I love the feel of a book in my hands, the compactness of it, the shape, the size. I love the feel of paper. The sound it makes when I turn a page. I love the beauty of print on paper, the patterns, the shapes, the fonts. I am astonished by the versatility and practicality of The Book. It is so simple. It is so fit for its purpose. It may give me mere content, but no e-reader will ever give me that sort of added pleasure. — Susan Hill

I was a prisoner, but the prison library was excellent.
On one table in the corner, I found an e-reader with a note that said, "In case I forgot anything."
I don't like to think I can be bought, but if I could, this guy definitely knew the currency. Roses and books - I could survive in these rooms forever. — Alex Flinn

Reader, be assured this narrative is no fiction. — W.E.B. Du Bois

I own an e-reader, but I use it almost exclusively to read things that aren't books - student theses, unbound galleys. — Elizabeth McCracken

A poem is good if it contains a new analogy and startles the reader out of the habit of treating words as counters. — T. E. Hulme

Horror, let's face it, is basically pretty dumb. You're writing about events that are preposterous, and the trick is to dress them up in language so compelling that the reader doesn't care. — T.E.D. Klein

Our first CTA is usually for another purchase: either the next book or a bundle of multiple books. After that we'll have a call to join our e-mail list in order to get upcoming books free or at a discount. We often follow with a third CTA that contains either a list of our other books or (preferably) a link to a web page with that list (seeing as we can update the webpage easily but don't want to update all of our books' CTAs). Somewhere in there we usually try adding a request for the reader to leave a review for the book they've just read. — Sean Platt

Let me ask you outright, gentle reader, if there have not been hours, indeed whole days and weeks of your life, during which all your usual activities were painfully repugnant, and everything you believed in and valued seemed foolish and worthless? — E.T.A. Hoffmann

Purchasing and downloading a book on to your e-reader won't necessarily protect it from disappearing. — Jonathan Zittrain

As any avid reader knew, a good read deserved a good seat. — David S.E. Zapanta

If/when I die, do not want Pam lonely. Want her to remarry, have full life. As long as new husband is nice guy. Gentle guy. Religious guy. Very caring + good to kids. But kids not fooled. Kids prefer dead dad (i.e., me) to religious guy. Pale, boring, religious guy, with no oomph, who wears weird sweaters and is always a little sad, due to, cannot get boner, due to physical ailment.
Ha ha.
Death very much on my mind tonight, future reader. Can it be true? That I will die? That Pam, kids will die? Is awful. Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like.
Note to self: try harder, in all things, to be better person. — George Saunders

I don't choose between my house phone and my mobile. I don't choose between my laptop and my notebook. And I don't intend to choose between my e-reader and my bookshelf. — Sara Sheridan

A writer writes knowing that nothing else will elicit the same kind of satisfaction and personal triumph as molding the written word into a reader's great experience. — Richelle E. Goodrich

You gonna deal with Mr. Hot and Moody?"
"Not sure. I may just pull out my e-reader."
He nodded. "Probably safer for your sanity. — Sylvia Day

Place yourself in the background; write in a way that comes naturally; work from a suitable design; write with nouns and verbs; do not overwrite; do not overstate; avoid the use of qualifiers; do not affect a breezy style; use orthodox spelling; do not explain too much; avoid fancy words; do not take shortcuts as the cost of clarity; prefer the standard to the offbeat; make sure the reader knows who is speaking; do not use dialect; revise and rewrite. — E.B. White

Here's what an e-reader is. A battery operated slab, about a pound, one half-inch thick, perhaps an aluminum border, rubberized back, plastic, metal, silicon, a bit of gold, plus rare metals such as columbite-tantalite (Google it) ripped from the earth, often in war-torn Africa. To make one e-reader requires 33 pounds of minerals, plus 79 gallons of water to produce the battery and printed writing and refine the minerals. The production of other e-reading devices such as cell phones, iPads and whatever new gizmo will pop up (and down) in the years ahead is similar. "The adverse health impacts from making one e-reader are estimated to be 70 times greater than those for making a single book," says the Times. Then you figure that the one hundred million e-readers will be outmoded in short order--to be replaced by one hundred million new and improved devices in the years ahead that will likewise be replace by new models ad infinitum, and you realize an environmental disaster is at hand. — Bill Henderson

It's always the end of the world," said Russell Grandinetti, one of Amazon's top executives. "You could set your watch on it arriving." He pointed out, though, that the landscape was in some ways changing for the first time since Gutenberg invented the modern book nearly 600 years ago. "The only really necessary people in the publishing process now are the writer and reader," he said. "Everyone who stands between those two has both risk and opportunity." Amazon Signs Up Authors, Writing Publishers Out of Deal. New York Times, 10/16/2011 — Russell Grandinetti

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader's intelligence, or whose attitude is patronizing. — E.B. White

But metre itself implies a passion , i.e. a state of excitement, both in the Poet's mind, & is expected in that of the Reader. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The nurses deem the e-reader to be more sanitary than a paper book. — Gabrielle Zevin

I believe providing every little smidge of information, while a testament to the author, does not allow the reader to experience the story in a personal way. In light of that, I tried to leave slivers of "white space" that the reader has the opportunity to fill with their own ideas, concepts, and memories. In that way, I invite the reader to become an active part of the journey. — Mark E. Lein

We've clearly entered a period in which the analog of text is no longer important or relevant. All text will be electronic. I accept that fact. My house has thousands of books in it, and I've started to look at them completely differently. They now seem to me to be like antiquarian objects. Their use value has become negligible to me because I'm perfectly happy to read on an e-reader. — Will Self

I think that to transfuse emotion - not to transmit thought but to set up in the reader's sense a vibration corresponding to what was felt by the writer - is the peculiar function of poetry. — A.E. Housman

The e-reader certainly sorts out the sheep from the goats, and divides those who need to read from those who like to turn the pages. — Margaret Drabble

(The Gentle Reader may perhaps have suffered from this difficulty.) — E. Nesbit

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. — S.E. Hinton

Thank God for old-fashioned hardcovers. The e-book reader she had at home wouldn't have packed nearly the same punch. — Christine Warren

14But when you see b the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be ( c let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. 15 d Let the one who is on e the housetop not go down, nor enter his house, to take anything out, 16and let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. 17And f alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! 18Pray that it may not happen in winter. — Anonymous

A single overstatement, wherever or however it occurs, diminishes the whole, and a carefree superlative has the power to destroy, for the reader, the object of the writer's enthusiasm. — E.B. White

The written word can make one pause and contemplate. It can make a reader sigh to dream or question a belief in considerable depth. But all of that is nothing if those words fail to touch the heart and make one feel. — Richelle E. Goodrich

Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wishes to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time. — E. M. Forster

CUSTOMER: Hi.
BOOKSELLER: Hi there, how can I help?
CUSTOMER: Could you please explain Kindle to me.
BOOKSELLER: Sure. It's an e-reader, which means you download books and read them on a small hand-held computer.
CUSTOMER: Oh OK, I see. So ... this Kindle. Are the books on that paperback or hardback? — Jen Campbell

I get intrigued by a first lin and I write to find out why it means something to me. You make discoveries just the way the reader does, so you're simultaneously the writer and the reader. — E.L. Doctorow

Some of the events described in this book may well offend the reader's sensitivities. Part of this was Vimalananda's intention. He wanted Western holier-than-thou renunciates to know that "filth and orgies in the graveyard" (as one American once described Aghori) can be as conducive to spiritual advancement as can asanas, pranayama, and other "purer" disciplines. — Robert E. Svoboda

Digging deep inside you as a writer will damn near kill you at times. But in the end, your words will be true and undeniable for the reader, and that is all that ever really matters in writing. — Jason E. Hodges

I don't have an e-reader. One reason is that I like to dog-ear the page when I find a particularly good sentence or passage. — Carl Hiaasen

Humour plays close to the big, hot fire, which is the truth, and the reader feels the heat. — E.B. White

Why is it that if you say you don't enjoy using an e-reader, or that you aren't going to get one till the technology is mature, you get reported as "loathing" it?
The little Time article itself is fairly accurate about what I've said about e-reading, but the title of the series, "Famous Writers Who Loathe E-Books," reflects or caters to a silly idea: that not being interested in using a particular technology is the same as hating and despising it. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Of course, it may be that the arts of writing and photography are antithetical. The hope and aim of a word-handler is that he maycommunicate a thought or an impression to his reader without the reader's realizing that he has been dragged through a series of hazardous or grotesque syntactical situations. In photography the goal seems to be to prove beyond a doubt that the cameraman, in his great moment of creation, was either hanging by his heels from the rafters or was wedged under the floor with his lens in a knothole. — E.B. White

The Kindle is the most successful electronic book-reading tablet so far, but that's not saying much; Silicon Valley is littered with the corpses of e-book reader projects. — David Pogue

There are many rules of good writing, but the best way to find them is to be a good reader. — Stephen E. Ambrose

Penumbra [...] produces another e-reader - it's a Nook. Then another one, a Sony. Another one, marked KOBO. Really? Who has a Kobo? — Robin Sloan

First, I'd become an avid reader of blogs, especially music blogs, and they seemed to be where the critical-thinking action was at, to have the kind of energy that I associate with rock writing of the 1970s or Internet e-mail discussion lists a decade ago. — Carl Wilson

I have said that each aspect of the novel demands a different quality of the reader. Well, the prophetic aspect demands two qualities: humility and the suspension of the sense of humour. — E. M. Forster

This would require an e-book reader that is as easy to read as a traditional book, durable to abuse as much as we abuse paperbacks and cheap enough that when you lose it, you can buy another one — John Scalzi

Instapaper wouldn't be of as much value if it weren't for these mobile and e-reader devices. They give you a separate physical context for reading. — Marco Arment

I might love my e-reader, but I'd never pass up the chance to browse real books. — Nichole Chase

I am thus led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative ... A novel is a printed circuit through which flows the force of a reader's own life. — E.L. Doctorow

Nancy carried a cardboard boxes loaded with books toward the moving van that Saturday morning. Our eyes met and we shared a smile. "You didn't have as much stuff when you moved in," she pointed out wryly. "How many boxes of books is this? Seriously. It's like you're living in a freaking library." I shrugged. "You know me. I have a bit of a book fetish." "I wouldn't mind the books if you'd join us in the 21st century and get an e-reader already. Then when you move a thousand books from place to place, I don't risk throwing my back out. — Anonymous

Begin your writing, fiction or article, where the action begins. This action can be internal (e.g., an important insight or personal decision) or external (e.g., a murder or calamity). Begin too early, you lose your reader. Begin too late, you lose your story. — Walt Shiel

I've never worried about 'the reader' because there isn't one. There are thousands, and they all have strong opinions, from 'Magician' was the best ever,' and I've gone downhill since to 'The new book is the best ever,' so to whom to I listen? So I write for myself and hope other people like it. — Raymond E. Feist

Humor plays close to the big hot fire which is Truth, and sometimes the reader feels the heat. — E.B. White

Currently he was going through the entire Nero Wolfe series by Rex Stout, He'd just finished Murder by the Book and was in the process of downloading Triple Jeopardy to his e-reader when the alarm went off. — Keith R.A. DeCandido

I remember my fourth grade teacher reading 'Charlotte's Web' and 'Stuart Little' to us - both, of course, by E. B. White. His stories were genuinely funny, thought provoking and full of irony and charm. He didn't condescend to his readers, which was why I liked his books, and why I wasn't a big reader of other children's' books. — Louis Sachar

I had wanted simply to convey to the reader by way of concrete example that life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones. And I thought that if the point were demonstrated in a situation as extreme as that in a concentration camp, my book might gain a hearing. I therefore felt responsible for writing down what I had gone through, for I thought it might be helpful to people who are prone to despair. — Viktor E. Frankl

With the e-reader, the whole book was on
the same virtual page. One could not feel the depth of the pages on the left side increase as those of the right side diminished, the
gradual progression from beginning to middle to end, the sense of where one stood in the journey of the story. — Daniel Seltzer

Once he became a series character, I made the conscious choice that he would never act like a series character, never wink at the reader, never pull his punches. Better for him, better for me. — Donald E. Westlake

Yet enthusiasm is no excuse for the historian going off balance. He should remind the reader that outcomes were neither inevitable nor foreordained, but subject to a thousand changes and chances. — Samuel E. Morison

Talk away. If you bore us, we have books."
With this invitation Rickie began to relate his history. The reader who has no book will be obliged to listen to it. — E. M. Forster

Our easiest approach to a definition of any aspect of fiction is always by considering the sort of demand it makes on the reader. Curiosity for the story, human feelings and a sense of value for the characters, intelligence and memory for the plot. What does fantasy ask of us? It asks us to pay something extra. — E. M. Forster

With the confidence and peace of mind native to true genius, I lay my life story before the world, so that the reader may learn how to educate himself to be a great tomcat, may recognize the full extent of my excellence, may love, value, honour and admire me- and worship me a little.
Should anyone be audacious enough to think of casting doubt on the sterling worth of this remarkable book, let him reflect that he is dealing with a tomcat possessed of intellect, understanding, and sharp claws. — E.T.A. Hoffmann

Kessen groaned, then silently wondered if she should download the e-reader application for her phone she could pretend to be texting but be reading instead. It might look odd for her to be staring at her phone for long periods of time. — Rachel Van Dyken

Being a reader is sort of like being president, except reading involves fewer state dinners, usually. You have this agenda you want to get through, but you get distracted by life events, e.g., books arriving in the mail/World War III, and you are temporarily deflected from your chosen path. — Nick Hornby

It is said that you can't write without a reader. The opposite holds true as well; you can't read without a writer. But if as a single, creative person you are one in the same, then, well ... problem solved! Great writing is born from that which we personally long to read. — Richelle E. Goodrich

I pull out my e-reader and get back to my fictional boyfriend. Lord knows he won't cheat on me. — M.D. Saperstein

fired up my e-reader to get lost in Easter Lust. It's a story about a bunny rabbit shifter who meets a chicken shifter. They come together, fall in love, and then, tragically, discover they're both submissive bottoms. — Nick Pageant

I'm more than a little suspicious of humor in poems, because I think it can at times be a way of getting a reaction out of a reader, or an audience, that is something closer to relief: i.e., thank god this isn't poetry, but stand-up comedy. Some poets are really funny, but more often poets are fourth rate stand up comics at best. But they benefit from the sheer relief of the audience. — Matthew Zapruder

How a piece ends is very important to me. It's the last chance to leave an impression with the reader, the last shot at 'nailing' it. I love to write ending lines; usually, I know them first and write toward them, but if I knew how they came to me, I wouldn't tell. — S.E. Hinton

I'm not a sucker for happily ever afters, but if these two characters don't get theirs I might climb inside this e-reader and lock them both inside that damn garage forever. — Colleen Hoover

The Nook is an under-appreciated genius of a lovemark. The team at Barnes & Noble got a lot right with the Nook, and from a lovemark perspective, I think they created a more intimate product than any other dedicated e-reader. The rubber back behind the Nook is soft and pliable - not hard metal like the later Kindles - making it sensual and intimate. Barnes & Noble also recreated the engraved faces of famous authors from their stores and used them as Nook screensavers. It's brilliant, not just because it makes reading more intimate, but also because it solidifies the Barnes & Noble brand itself. — Jason Merkoski

it's going great. Two months in, and I've created three apps."

"Apps?"

"For people who buy my book as an e-book --which will be everybody. The first is called Don't Look. It's for the overly sensitive. It blurs and turns the type red when a dog dies or a baby is born with a birth defect. Stuff like that. My second is It's Not Okay When You Say It, and it delivers an electrical zap if the reader laughs at a racial slur. My third is Jesus Thesaurus, which replaces explicit sexual language with church words. So, when one of my characters 'saints' a guy's 'disciple', He'll beg her to 'cavalry' his 'Baptists' and 'shout amen'. — Helen Ellis

Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness. Let there spring, Gentle One, from out its leaves vigor of thought and thoughtful deed to reap the harvest wonderful. Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare. Thus in Thy good time may infinite reason turn the tangle straight, and these crooked marks on a fragile leaf be not indeed — W.E.B. Du Bois

As in the sexual experience, there are never more than two persons present in the act of reading-the writer, who is the impregnator, and the reader, who is the resspondent. This gives the experience of reading a sublimity and power unequalled by any other form of communication. — E.B. White

I was an avid reader of futurists during the 1970s and '80s. They were so wrong - about everything. — Hermann E. Ott

To Margaret - I hope that it will not set the reader against her - the station of King's Cross had always suggested Infinity. Its very situation - withdrawn a little behind the facile splendours of St. Pancras - implied a comment on the materialism of life. Those two great arches, colourless, indifferent, shouldering between them an unlovely clock, were fit portals for some eternal adventure, whose issue might be prosperous, but would certainly not be expressed in the ordinary language of prosperity. — E. M. Forster

When you use single character viewpoint, you tell the main character's story - and only his or her story. Every single thing in the plot - whether it's an event, problem, emotion, or consequence - should be revealed through that main character's eyes. Your main character needs to be on center stage throughout the entire story, acting and reacting to what is happening in the plot. To do that effectively, reveal only your main character's emotions and thoughts. Tell your reader only what your main character is feeling, not the feelings of other characters. — Tracey E. Dils

They were probably reading on their tablets," said Nina loyally. She loved her e-reader, too. "Yes, I know," said the man. "But I couldn't see. I couldn't see what they were reading or ask them if it was good, or make a mental note to look for it later. It was as if suddenly, one day, all the books simply disappeared. — Jenny Colgan

It is obvious enough for the reader to conclude, "She loves young Emerson." A reader in Lucy's place would not find it obvious. Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome "nerves" or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire. She loved Cecil; George made her nervous; will the reader explain to her that the phrases should have been reversed? — E. M. Forster

ATLANTA NIGHTS is sure to please the reader who enjoys this sort of thing. — Raymond E. Feist

Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions. — A.E. Housman

Sensory experience should not be draped on top of the story as sort of a last-minute decoration. Done right, it is woven into the fabric of the story, and as this happens, the reader is woven in, right alongside the description. In giving advice to writers, E. L. Doctorow once said that good writing should communicate more than the mere fact that it is raining. The reader should feel rained on. A — Douglas Wilson

She is bundled up in spite of the temperature, has her e-reader on her lap, and beside her is a little Tupperware bento box with apple slices and mixed nuts. — Jodi Picoult

I take my seat and pick the e-reader back up. "You know, Breckin. You really are pretty damn great." He smiles and winks at me. "It's the Mormon in me. We're a pretty awesome people. — Colleen Hoover

If you want to be a writer, I have two pieces of advice. One is to be a reader. I think that's one of the most important parts of learning to write. The other piece of advice is 'Just do it!' Don't think about it, don't agonize, sit down and write. — S.E. Hinton

Apparently zombie killing wears him out. I slip beneath my flannel covers and fire up my e-reader. I always said I wouldn't get one; that I would always continue the timeless tradition of holding a physical book within my hands, but I do have to — Lacey Black

I have my own e-reader, but I hardly ever use it. I need to fold down pages and flag passages with sticky notes. I need to experience books, not just read them. I never go anywhere without a book in my bag, and to travel across the ocean, I'd packed more than my fair share. — Lauren Morrill

When I was in my late twenties, a friend suggested that, since I was an avid SF reader and had been since I was barely a teenager, that since it didn't look like the poetry was going where I wanted, I might try writing a science fiction story. I did, and the first story I ever wrote was 'The Great American Economy.' — L.E. Modesitt Jr.