Reader Reaction Quotes

I like literature that you respond to in some way. You laugh, you cry, you turn the light on - that's great, it's eliciting a response by proxy.

Usually, when somebody really hates your book, they're not going to waste time on it, telling you what you need to work on.

I think if a book has the power to move a reader, it also has the power to offend a reader. And you want your books to have power, so you just have to take what comes with that.

Normally, if I would read in a script that there's mostly flashbacks and mostly voiceover, I would run as far away as possible.

It's exciting for people to define who they are in relation to what I write - whether it be by loving or hating it.

I don't care if a reader hates one of my stories, just as long as he finishes the book.

Generally my favorite remarks always come from my readers. I've had people say my books made them laugh, or cry, or that it frightened them late at night.

Irish readers, British readers, American readers: is it odd that I haven't a clue about how differently they react? Or better say, I cannot find the words to describe my hunch about them.

I'm kind of concerned about 'Ego & Hubris' because I'm thinking that people will read it and maybe even be entertained by it, but at the end of it, you know, they'll wonder, 'Why did this guy write this? What was the point of it?'

Publishing a book is like stuffing a note into a bottle and hurling it into the sea. Some bottles drown, some come safe to land, where the notes are read and then possibly cherished, or else misinterpreted, or else understood all too well by those who hate the message. You never know who your readers might be.

When I write a book, I write a book for myself; the reaction is up to the reader. It's not my business whether people like or dislike it.

I think 'Beasts of No Nation' is a novel that hopefully will affect each person who reads it in a different way.

I would like to please the reader, and I think that surprise has to be an element of this, and that may necessitate a certain amount of teasing. To shock the reader is something else again. That has to be handled with great care if you're not going to alienate and hurt him, and I'm firmly against that, just as I disapprove of people who dress with that in mind - dye their hair blue and stick safety pins through their noses and so on.

That [photographs] disturb readers is exactly as it should be: that's why photojournalism is often more powerful than written journalism.

When people are like, ''UnREAL' is so dark,' I'm like, 'Hahahahahahahahahaha! Wait 'til you get to 'Sharp Objects.''

Within half an hour of posting a piece on 'Slate,' I get a direct, often hostile and personal, response from readers.

You hope that people read your book and say "Yes, this is the way it is or could be." But then you have no way of knowing until the reader reads the book. Actually, the critical response doesn't worry me. I've had very few reviews that have upset me.

If the hairs on my neck stand up while I'm writing, I figure the reader will get the same kind of shock.

If chick-lit really is taking a commercial battering, I'd suggest it's because the marketing has been done to death. Covering everything in girlie pink and putting chocolate in the title may once have been a clever Pavlovian device but now makes readers feel a bit sick.

If you read only the New York Times- I said, 'Oh my God!' The readers of the New York Times are heading for a major, major breakdown shock if Trump is in fact elected.

Most good newspapers don't set out to offend readers. But newspapers shouldn’t avoid controversy, and if they don’t occasionally a offend readers, they’re probably not doing their job.

I think writers like to see how people bring their words to life, and it's always surprising. Always, no matter what, whether it's good or bad, it's always surprising because a whole human being is coming to that piece of writing.

When a locked-room mystery doesn't work, the solution makes you groan, and the book gets hurled across the room.

I'm really not responsible for what mental operation people have when they're reading my books other than the ones which are created by literary effects.

Writers write for one reason: to create an emotion in the reader, to reach across and make them feel something. You want a reaction. Yeah, it's nicer when the reaction is to throw flowers than it is to throw brickbats, but you have to accept both equally.