Alan Cheuse Quotes

William Goldman's Marathon Man was a novel that taught me about suspense. I was maybe 16 years old when I read it and I remember thinking, "You could put a gun to my head and I wouldn't put this book down." I loved that feeling - and want to give it others.

With fiction, it could be about anything. It just has to be good writing, like Maria Semple's "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," which I read recently. I want to forget I have a book in my hand.

Ideally, we should like to define a good book as one which 'permits, invites, or compels' good reading

When you pick up a script and you can't stop reading it because it's a real page-turner, that's a good sign.

Seduction is an absolute pleasure to read -- clever, suspenseful, exciting, mysterious, learned, and engrossing. Some of the best historical fiction I've read in quite some time and just plain reading fun. M.J. Rose is at the top of her game, and that is saying something.

I started reading G. K. Chesterton's 'The Man Who Was Thursday' on a subway ride, almost missed my stop, and walked home thumbing pages.

Once I opened a book, I felt compelled to finish it. I was drawn into a world, and I had to know what would happen, how it would end.

I want readers turning pages until three o'clock in the morning. I want the themes of books to stick around for a reader. I'm always trying to find a way to balance characters and theme.

I'm always in search of those books where you don't want to stop reading, and 'Me Before You' is at the top of that list.

It's a rare book that wins the battle against drooping eyelids.

I love reading books that you can't put down, and they just take you over for a night or a weekend.

I think it is good that books still exist, but they do make me sleepy.

No one wants to read poetry. You have to make it impossible for them to put the poem down--impossible for them to stop reading it, word after word. You have to keep them from closing the book.

Reading a great book causes jolts and frights.

We live for books.

Murder, arson, adultery, drugging and drinking, cruel politics--reading a book crammed with such activities can make the timid and yearning among us feel like the happiest people in the world.

Books are like flypaper, memories cling to the printed pages better than anything else.

Michael Harvey should be read by all.

I love books where you can't get out of bed. You want to consume them in one sitting, devour them. Those are my favorites, where you've almost abandoned your life for them. That doesn't happen every time, but those are the best.

Books are, let's face it, better than everything else.

Of all things I liked books best.

THE THREE is really wonderful. A mix of Michael Crichton and Shirley Jackson, hard to put down and vastly entertaining.

Too many writers think that all you need to do is write well-but that's only part of what a good book is. Above all, a good book tells a good story. Focus on the story first. Ask yourself, 'Will other people find this story so interesting that they will tell others about it?' Remember: A bestselling book usually follows a simple rule, 'It's a wonderful story, wonderfully told'; not, 'It's a wonderfully told story.'

Books. I'd probably spend all my time alone and lost in books if I could. It's easier that way.

I stopped reading William Faulkner because it's hard work. I want to read a good writer, but I also want to read something where the pages are going to move along. That's what I want. It doesn't have to be a thriller or a mystery. Just something where I get caught up in the story.