Kurt Vonnegut Quotes

I want the reader to know what's going on. So there's never a mystery in my books.

I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it's good for the circulation.

The first sentence of a book is a promise.

Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.

You've got to write for your audience.

I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a new world, who's willing to do their part. But then I have to do my part and give them a sound and a voice that they believe in enough to keep going.

Writers are storytellers. So are readers.

To answer that I have to describe what I think is my responsibility as a thriller writer: To give my readers the most exciting roller coaster ride of a suspense story I can possibly think of.

I think you tell the story that has to be told. You tell the story that's the truth. You tell the story that readers will be interested in and should know about.

Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.

A story in Asimov's is read by hundreds of thousands of people.

I love my job, and I love books. I read anything, including cereal boxes. I care deeply about what people think of my books, and I memorize my reviews. I love to hear from my readers.

I've never chased the dollar, I've always chased the reader's heart. I love having more readers. The more people who read it, the more thrilled I am.

I don't like books that play to the gallery, but I've become more concerned with telling a story as clearly and engagingly as I can.

The connection that I have with my readers makes me very happy, and gives meaning to the strange profession of writing

You want in all cases for the story to get through the writing.

I just hope that readers and publishers continue to appreciate good writing and good storytelling in all their various forms. And I hope that people continue to read books, even though we have so many other options for entertainment.

You must find the right voice (or voices) for the timbre that can convince a reader to give himself up to you.

The artist’s aim is not to instruct the viewer, but to give information, whether the viewer understands the information is incidental to the artist.

He who does not expect a million readers should not write a line.

Twitter provides a great amount of timely information, but we still need those people to fill out the rest of the story and the context.

The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

The thing that helps me do a good job is that I don't feel the need to explain everything about the world to my reader. I'm not writing a history text on the Four Corners. I'm telling a story that's set there. The setting belongs in the background for the most part, and it's easy for fantasy authors to forget that. That's one of the unfortunate parts of Tolkien's legacy, in my opinion. Read the first hundred pages of the Fellowship of the Ring and you start to get pissed, "Shut up about the Shire's museums! Isn't the world supposed to be in peril or something?"

Writing is such a strangely and radically private act, and yet its purpose is this great sense of connection and community. I mean, I wanted people to love the book. And the only way to get them to love it is to try to make it good for them. So of course the audience has to be considered.

If he can give his readers no reason why they should read his book, except that the events happened to him, it is not a valid book.