You’ve heard of writer’s block. But have you heard of reader’s block?

Blog

You’ve heard of writer’s block. But have you heard of reader’s block?

August 5, 2019July 21, 2023 483

I found this in the August 2nd, 2019, New York Times. Fun reading…if you’re not suffering from reader’s block:

Reader’s block article

A writer is a world trapped in a person.

Victor Hugo

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Robert Benchley

If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.

Jim Morrison

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert A. Heinlein

There are three primal urges in human beings: Food, sex, and rewriting someone else’s play.

Romulus Linney

Keep a small can of WD-40 on your desk — away from any open flames — to remind yourself that if you don’t write daily, you will get rusty.

George Singleton

If you start with a bang, you won’t end with a whimper.

T.S. Eliot

The road to ignorance is paved with good editors.

George Bernard Shaw

Socially, a journalist fits in somewhere between a whore and a bartender. But spiritually he stands beside Galileo. He knows the world is round.

Sherman Reilly Duffy

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

Orson Scott Card

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain

It’s an accepted fact that all writers are crazy; even the normal ones are weird.

William Goldman

Plot is, I think, the good writer’s last resort and the dullard’s first choice.

Stephen King

It is only natural to pattern yourself after someone. But you can’t just copy someone. If you like someone’s work, the important thing is to be exposed to everything that person has been exposed to.

Bob Dylan

Stories are never too long or too short. They’re too interesting or too boring.

William Shawn

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

To me, movies and music go hand in hand. When I’m writing a script, one of the first things I do is find the music I’m going to play for the opening sequence.

Quentin Tarantino

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river.

Lisa See

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.