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 609

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

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

I’m writing a book. I’ve got the page numbers done.

Stephen Wright

I haven’t got 10 rules that guarantee success, though I promise I’d share them if I did. The truth is that I found success by stumbling off alone in a direction most people thought was a dead end, breaking all the 1990s shibboleths about children’s books in the process.

J.K. Rowling

Books aren’t written, they’re rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn’t quite done it.

Michael Crichton

Every writer with half a brain knows to surround himself or herself with editors who are smarter, far more articulate and infinitely better looking.

Chris Claremont

A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.

Joseph Conrad

Biography should be written by an acute enemy.

Arthur Balfour

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

Just don’t be boring!

Robert Liebmann

If you wait for inspiration to write, you’re not a writer. You’re a waiter.

Dan Poynter

The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.

Douglas Adams

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.

Gloria Steinem

If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.

Stan Lee

You may be able to take a break from writing, but you won’t be able to take a break from being a writer.

Stephen Leigh

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.

Michael Burke

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

C. J. Cherryh

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