Reader S Digest Quotes

You have more issues than Reader's Digest. ~ Rebecca McNutt

The sisterhood of librarians is a non-profit organisation and our goal is to keep imagination alive, not make money. ~ S.A. Tawks

At all ages, if [fantasy and myth] is used well by the author and meets the right reader, it has the same power: to generalize while remaining concrete, to present in palpable form not concepts or even experiences but whole classes of experience, and to throw off irrelevancies. Bat at its best it can do more; it can give us experiences we have never had and thus, instead of 'commenting on life,' can add to it. ~ C.S. Lewis

How do you crush spirit? You take out all the good. ~ S.A. Tawks

This didn't sound good. It sounded like the optimism was escaping from him. ~ S.A. Tawks

No one is better than anyone else. Some just simply don't fulfil their potential of being the best they possibly can. ~ S.A. Tawks

Young lovers. If you get it right, it's amazing what you can share. The challenging part is maintaining it. ~ S.A. Tawks

As much as I respect him, he is somewhat of an ignorant fool. ~ S.A. Tawks

There was a moment of silence as they imagined a future in which there existed an organisation that stole imagination for, undoubtedly, a sinister plan. ~ S.A. Tawks

I do. I feel wonderful. Are you sure it's Carol Mardus?" "Yes. Certainly. It shouldn't have taken me so long." "Who and what is she?" "She got Dick started. She was a reader at Distaff, and she got Manny Upton to take Dick's stories. Then later he made her fiction editor. She is now." "Fiction editor of Distaff?" "Yes." "She wasn't on your list." "No, I didn't think of her. I've only seen her two or three times." "C-A-R-O-L? M-A-R-D-I-S?" "U-S." "Married?" "No. As far as I know. She was married to Willis Krug, and divorced. ~ Rex Stout

No one knows if something works until it actually works. That's why you must always try. ~ S.A. Tawks

Too many questions can cripple imagination, for how can you apply logical questions to something that is not real? ~ S.A. Tawks

Men cannot be nice and kind to a woman and have no affection for them. ~ S.A. Tawks

I have been trying to make the reader believe that we actually are, at present, creatures whose character must be, in some respects, a horror to God, as it is, when we really see it, a horror to ourselves. This I believe to be a fact: and I notice that the holier a man is, the more fully he is aware of that fact. ~ C.S. Lewis

It had been communicated to me through the odd, secret whispers of women that a female's nose must never shine. In war, in famine, in fire, it had to be matte, and no one got a lipstick without the requisite face powder. … I was taunted by the problem: how could someone write something like the 'Symposium' and make sure her nose did not shine at the same time? It didn't matter to me that I was reading a translation. I'd read Plato's brilliant, dense prose and not be able to tear myself away. Even as a reader my nose shined. It was clearly either/or. You had to concentrate on either one or the other. In a New York minute, the oil from Saudi Arabia could infiltrate your house and end up on your nose. It didn't hurt, it didn't make noise, it didn't incapacitate in any way except for the fact that no girl worth her salt took enough time away from vigilance to read a book let alone write one. ~ Andrea Dworkin

One shot is all anyone needs if they back themselves and do it right. ~ S.A. Tawks

But the most obvious fact about praise
whether of God or anything
strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise ... The world rings with praise
lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game ... I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. ~ C.S. Lewis

I mind-melded the details trapped inside my head since it felt easier than talking, which surprised me." -- Jennifer Mills from Soul Reader by: Dianne Bright ~ Dianne Bright

You are Zyon's daughter. You are a soul reader. This trip is more than just a vacation," Jadan said firmly. "You might feel like postponing it now, but we need to look for the medallion while we are in that region. Joe will keep an eye on everything. Plus, your mom will know what to do. I can even call for backup. ~ Dianne Bright

A cup of tea at the ready and a jug of water will suffice just fine. ~ S.A. Tawks

Be warned, reader. Once seen, something cannot be unseen and once read, something cannot be unread. What lies ahead can be the future of spirit but the future of spirit can also be what lies inside your head. ~ S.A. Tawks

Gentle reader, the Fountain of Youth is radioactive, and those who imbibe its poisonous heavy waters will suffer the hideous fate of decaying metal. Yet almost without exception, the wretched idiot inhabitants of our benighted planet would gulp down this radioactive excrement if it were offered. ~ William S. Burroughs

I wish my prose to be transparent-I don't want the reader to stumble over me; I want him to look through what I'm saying to what I'm describing. I don't want him ever to say, Oh, goodness, how nicely written this is. That would be a failure. ~ V.S. Naipaul

I don't believe anything will keep the right reader & the right book apart. But our literary loves are as diverse as our human! You couldn't make me like Henry James or dislike Jane Austen whatever you did. ~ C.S. Lewis

A great poet can give wings to abstract thoughts that touch a reader's mind with the ecstasy of joy. ~ Debasish Mridha

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

All the books were beginning to turn against me. Indeed, I must have been blind as a bat not to have seen it long before, the ludicrous contradiction between my theory of life and my actual experiences as a reader. George MacDonald had done more to me than any other writer; of course it was a pity that he had that bee in his bonnet about Christianity. He was good in spite of it. Chesterton has more sense than all the other moderns put together; bating, of course, his Christianity. Johnson was one of the few authors whom I felt I could trust utterly; curiously enough, he had the same kink. Spenser and Milton by a strange coincidence had it too. Even among ancient authors the same paradox was to be found. The most religious (Plato, Aeschylus, Virgil) were clearly those on whom I could really feed. On the other hand, those writers who did not suffer from religion and with whom in theory my sympathy ought to have been complete -- Shaw and Wells and Mill and Gibbon and Voltaire -- all seemed a little thin; what as boys we called "tinny". It wasn't that I didn't like them. They were all (especially Gibbon) entertaining; but hardly more. There seemed to be no depth in them. They were too simple. The roughness and density of life did not appear in their books. ~ C.S. Lewis

Through her eyes the day was new and anything was possible. ~ S.A. Tawks

Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat is a picture book meritable of every child reader, whether he or she is just a beginner, or a bit more advanced. ("Reviews by Cat Ellington: The Complete Anthology, Vol. 1," 2018) ~ Cat Ellington

Do you know what the best and worst thing about a book is? The author can't answer all your questions, only your imagination can. ~ S.A. Tawks

There is so much we do not know about the imagination. That is why we must study it. ~ S.A. Tawks

We must meet children as equals in that area of our nature where we are their equals ... The child as reader is neither to be patronized nor idolized: we talk to him as man to man. ~ C.S. Lewis

I tried to kill myself when I was thirteen but failed. That was the greatest failure of my life. ~ S.A. Tawks

They're a group called The Spirit-crushers and their leader is known as The Almighty Spirit-crusher. ~ S.A. Tawks

If someone knew equally as much about the ins and outs of your home, it would not be your home. ~ S.A. Tawks

The novel was simple, heartwarming, painful, and lovely, all in perfect doses." -Writer's Digest Review of Emily Nelson's The Locket ~ Emily Nelson

Every reader his or her book.
Every book its reader. ~ S.R. Ranganathan

I would say that my ideal of writing history is to give the reader vicarious experience. You're born in one particular century at a particular time, and the only experience you can have directly is of the place you live and the time you live in. History is a way of giving you experience that you would otherwise be cut off from. ~ Edmund S. Morgan

You've told a good story in a skillful manner. I like it that you haven't moralized about your heroine's mistakes. You've made it difficult for the reader not to sympathize with her."
"I sympathize with her," Amanda said frankly. "I've always thought it would be the worst kind of horror to be trapped in a loveless marriage. So many women are forced to marry because of pure economics. If more women were able to support themselves, there would be fewer reluctant brides and unhappy wives."
"Why, Miss Briars," he said softly. "How unconventional of you."
She countered his amusement with a perplexed frown. "It's only sensible, really."
He realized suddenly that this was the key to understanding her. Amanda was so doggedly practical that she was willing to discard the hypocrisies and stale social attitudes that most people accepted without thinking. Why, indeed, should a woman marry just because it was the expected thing to do, if she were able to choose otherwise?
"Perhaps most women think it is easier to marry than support themselves," he said, deliberately provoking her.
"Easier?" she snorted. "I've never seen a shred of evidence that spending the rest of one's days in domestic drudgery is any easier than working at some trade. What women need is more education, more choices, and then they will be able to consider options for themselves other than marriage. ~ Lisa Kleypas

I cannot be the only reader who has wondered why God, having given him [St. Paul] so many gifts, withheld from him (what would seem so necessary for the first Christian theologian) that of lucidity and orderly exposition. ~ C.S. Lewis

Embrace what works and discard what doesn't. ~ S.A. Tawks

The power of fiction is a great thing. But, after all, reality is just a little more important. ~ S.A. Tawks

What the future held for spirit, Emily could only imagine. ~ S.A. Tawks

i think any poem worth its salt, if poems can indeed be salty, should allow the reader to think. this poem is of course a chronological poem tracing the development of humans through the movement of black women. i have no feelings that the poem is exclusive of any one but i wanted to write a sassy hands-on-the-hips poem from the understanding that i am a woman and indeed was once a girl. i think it works because the more you know about anthropology and history the more you can follow what i am saying; on the other hand you can be a little child with no previous experiences and catch the joy of the poem. it goes from the first human bones discovered all the way to the space age. what has been included is as important to me as what has been excluded. what i strove to do was show progress, movement, humor and a bit of pride.

this is the most i've ever commented on any poem of mine since i tend to agree with t.s. eliot when he said a poet was the last person to know what the poem was/is about. ~ Nikki Giovanni

If you find that the reader of popular romances
however uneducated a reader, however bad the romances
goes back to his old favourites again and again, then you have pretty good evidence that they are to him a sort of poetry. ~ C.S. Lewis

Octavia Butler often described herself as an outsider, but within science fiction, she was loved as an insider, someone who was a fan first and came to S.F. writing as an enthusiastic reader. ~ Karen Joy Fowler