Difficult Reading Quotes

While much recent historicist criticism has assumed early nineteenth-century readers attuned to subtle ideological nuances in poetry, actual responses from readers often come closer to clulessness ... It is no surprise that no one understood Blake, but other poets fared not much better ... Coleridge's 'Christabel' was 'the standing enigma which puzzles the curiosity of literary circles. What is it all about?', while another reviewer asked about Shelley, 'What, in the name of wonder on one side, and of common sense on the other, is the meaning of this metaphysical rhapsody about the unbinding of Prometheus?'. Even Keats was condemned for 'his frequent obscurity and confusion of language' and his 'unintelligible quaintness'. Byron, never to be outdone, boasted in 'Don Juan' that not only did he not understand many of his fellow poets, he did not understand himself either: 'I don't pretend that I quite understand / My own meaning when I would be very fine.' ... ~ Andrew Elfenbein

A book is an experiment, and as with all experiments, there is a sense of uncertainty about how it will turn out. ~ Jerome Groopman

Forgiving is one of the most difficult things for a human being to do, but I think it means looking at some slight you feel, putting yourself in the position of the other person, and wiping away any sort of resentment and antagonism you feel toward them. Then let that other person know that everything is perfectly friendly and normal between you. ~ Jimmy Carter

It's just that you are practiced at persuading, and sometimes it's quite difficult, sir to distinguish being persuaded by you from being knocked down in street and stamped on.
Pg.406 ~ Hilary Mantel

You can make positive deposits in your own economy every day by reading and listening to powerful, positive, life-changing content and by associating with encouraging and hope-building people. ~ Zig Ziglar

I'm sorry, Miraculous One, it's difficult to think of new titles for you when you ask short questions. ~ Jonathan Stroud

And every writer cherishes the dream of setting the young on fire, even if only by a cigarette butt tossed casually over the shoulder, and when we meet young people who say that they were inspired by what we said to rush off and read the books we were talking about, we can congratulate ourselves for all those guilty hours when, the last two left after a long lunch, we went on arguing about everything we knew. ~ Clive James

There wasn't a place I could think of that was more magical than a building bursting with books and stories and words ... ~ Lindsay Eland

It feels to me as thought I've become the character in it, and the character's life ends when the books does. I suppose there are times I'm glad too. Then the ending is like coming out of a bad dream, and I feel all light and free, reborn. I sometimes wonder whether writers really know what they're doing to us readers. [...] I don't read much anymore [...] maybe for that reason. Because I didn't want books to have me in their power. It's like poison. I imagined I'd become immune. But you never become immune. On the contrary. ~ Peter Stamm

It is easy to be a philosopher in academia, but it is very difficult to be a philosopher in life. ~ Anton Chekhov

Perhaps this new kind of reading will appeal to us after we give it a try. ~ S.A. Tawks

just before his arrival his two lieutenants had very nearly come to blows over the meaning of the word dromedary. They were both good seamen and amiable companions, but they were both given to writing verse, Mowett being devoted to the heroic couplet while Rowan preferred a Pindaric freedom, and each thought the other's not only incorrect but devoid of grammar, sense, meaning, and poetic inspiration. At two bells in the afternoon watch this rivalry had spilled over on to the name of the transport: why, it was difficult to make out, since dromedary could not conceivably be made to rhyme with anything ~ Patrick O'Brian

But those with shattered souls find it very difficult to speak. ~ Elizabeth Smart

I got the script for 'Real Steel.' I started reading and saw that it was about robot boxing, and I was immediately turned off. It's not my thing. But I continued on, and by the time I got to the end of the script, I had chicken skin and tears in my eyes. I thought, 'Man, we don't make movies like this anymore.' ~ Evangeline Lilly

The year 2013 has been very difficult, with a lot of headwinds in almost every region and every business. ~ Baba Kalyani

The most important thing is to read as much as you can, like I did. It will give you an understanding of what makes good writing and it will enlarge your vocabulary. ~ J.K. Rowling

We can never go back. We can rise up from our failures, screwups, and falls, but we can never go back to where we stood before we were brave or before we fell. Courage transforms the emotional structure of our being. This change often brings a deep sense of loss. During the process of rising, we sometimes find ourselves homesick for a place that no longer exists. We want to go back to that moment before we walked into the arena, but there's nowhere to go back to. What makes this more difficult is that now we have a new level of awareness about what it means to be brave. We can't fake it anymore. We now know when we're showing up and when we're hiding out, when we are living our values and when we are not. Our new awareness can also be invigorating - it can reignite our sense of purpose and remind ~ Brene Brown

Fine. I'm tame. And boring. I like reading. And the last time I went to a party, I left early because Outlander was on. ~ Rachel Van Dyken

We get so many people saying short fiction is not economical, that it doesn't sell; but there are so many of us enjoying writing it and reading it. So it's wonderful to be around people who love short fiction too - it's like hanging around with my tribe. ~ Junot Diaz

I knew all about reading a lot. About how it could take you to a world what was better than the real one. A world where there were adventures and mysteries and magic. Except, of course, books ended eventually, and then you had to go back to being yourself. ~ Chelsea Sedoti

I have always loved reading, so was interested in the literary world, and took many literary portraits. ~ Fay Godwin

I can learn my lines fine. It's just reading them in the first place that is the problem. ~ Salma Hayek

The truth of the matter is that about 99 percent of teaching is making the students feel interestedin the material. Then the other 1 percent has to do with your methods. And that's not just true of languages. It's true of every subject. ~ Noam Chomsky

The reading of tourist prospectuses is one of the joys of the world
it is like operetta in prose
all so flowery and heavenlike. ~ Marsden Hartley

It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get. ~ Confucius

I am ceaselessly occupied with the question of the constitution of radiation ... This quantum question is so incredibly important and difficult that everyone should busy himself on it. ~ Albert Einstein

If you always do the easier thing, then you cannot possibly remain steadfast when it becomes necessary to take a difficult stand. You must do what you know to be right. And you do know. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred you do know and you are just making excuses because the right thing is so hard, or just inconvenient. ~ Glen Cook

Leafing through Forbes or Fortune [magazine]s is like reading the operating manual of a strangely sanctimonious pirate ship ~ Adam Gopnik

I see the American experience as being defined by the immigrant paradigm of rupture and renewal: rupture with the old world, the old ways, and renewal of the self in a bright but difficult New World. ~ Ayad Akhtar

People nowadays talk about issues as if they're reading lines off a teleprompter. They recite what they read and echo it without thinking. It has become easier to divide people than to unify them, and to blind them than to give them vision. We are no longer unified like a bowl of Cheerios. Instead, we have become as segregated as a box of Lucky Charms. Every day we see the same leprechauns on TV acting like they're the experts of everything. ~ Suzy Kassem

I've always lived a life where what you see if what you get. I've never wanted to live two different lifestyles. The initial transition for me was perhaps the most difficult. It wasn't easy communicating what I believed and what my values were. Establishing that as a young adult was interesting. I was 20 years old when I got saved. ~ Kelly Clark

My childhood dream was to study mechanical engineering. After reading 'The Mysterious Island' - which I read 25 times as a boy - I thought that was the best thing a person could do. The engineer in the book knows mechanics and physics, and he creates a whole way of life on the island out of nothing. I wanted to be like that. ~ Dan Shechtman