Writing for Impact Quotes

When I was speaking about communicating, I meant that the listener - we have to reach the listener; otherwise, of course, you're writing the piece, as I say, only for the satisfaction of seeing it on the paper for yourself, and then it ends right there.

The most annoying and full-of-crap thing a writer says is, 'I write only for myself, I don't care if anyone reads it.' A writer without a reader doesn't exist.

You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don't labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers.

Of course, you always think about how it will be read. I always aim for a reading in one sitting.

And I've always worked on the principle that if it interests me enough to write about it, then it must interest a lot of other people.

If we as writers could predict what readers grab on to, we would write it.

When writing for a mass audience, put a fact in every sentence.

When I teach writing, I always tell my students you should assume that the audience you're writing for is smarter than you. You can't write if you don't think they're on your side, because then you start to yell at them or preach down to them.

In fifth grade, we had to write a story and read it in front of the class. When I read mine out, the class were just belly laughing. And I remember being like, 'This is the coolest!' So I want to dedicate my life to trying to make people laugh. I can't imagine doing anything else.

You write for two people, yourself and your audience, who are usually better educated and at least as smart.

If you are a writer and believe what you write, you are an activist.

If you're going to write something, that's going to be read by people, a lot of people, you hope it will not only entertain them but maybe do them some good in some way.

I think you become a writer when you stop writing for yourself or your teachers and start thinking about readers.

To me, there's no point in writing merely to entertain.

You have to keep your audience in your mind; if you're writing stuff that you know nobody's going to care about then you should rethink what you're doing!

Dear though the reader might be, I'd be silly to cater to what the reader wanted.

The art of the three-minute song is more like journalism than writing a big 400-page book. You want to be brief, you want to make sense right yen and there. And sometimes that takes a bit of work.

In this job you are going to write things and say things. Some people will hate them and some people will love them. That goes with the job and I respect the right of the people to have views and express them.

I simply write with an intelligent reader in mind. I don't think about how old they are.

I made a decision to write for my readers, not to try to find more readers for my writing.

I realize now I could have gotten a whole book out of that and so I think that was a big mistake. But the truth is you write in the moment and with your head down and there is no way back then that I could have conceived of Harry having the longevity that he has had.