Intersection #65: The Role of the Writer, Expectations of Readers / Audience

The Role of the Writer, Expectations of Readers / Audience

“Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.”

-Marcel Proust

“When you re-read a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in yourself than there was before.”

-Clifton Fadiman

“For no writer can help assuming that the reader is already like him. Already having seen, ad nauseum, what life looks like, he's far more interested in how it feels as a signpost toward what it means.” 

-David Foster Wallace (“The Legend of The Cadaver that Got a B”)

“There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.”

-G.K. Chesterton