QuoteProject
Authors, she soon decided, were probably best met within the pages of their novels, and were as much creatures of the reader's imagination as the characters in their books. Nor did they seem to think one had done them a kindness by reading their writings. Rather they had done one the kindness by writing them.
Alan Bennett
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Readers often treat authors as figments of their imagination, revealing that the true value is in the author's act of writing.

This quote by Alan Bennett suggests that authors are not just creators of characters and stories; instead, they inhabit a realm of creativity whereby their existence and impact are deeply intertwined with their readers' perceptions. It highlights the notion that while readers engage with authors through their works, authors may not feel any personal obligation or connection towards the reader, but rather the act of creating literature is a gift bestowed upon them.

Themes

AuthorsImaginationReadingWritingLiterature

In practice

Example use cases

During a book club meeting, one could use this quote to emphasize the relationship between the author and the reader.

More from Alan Bennett

Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standards.
Alan BennettRead
To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.
Alan BennettRead
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
Alan BennettRead
Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.
Alan BennettRead
To read is to withdraw.To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less...selfish.
Alan BennettRead
The best moments in reading are when you come across something - a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things - which you had thought special and particular to you. And now, here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out, and taken yours
Alan BennettRead

Similar quotes

We read in bed because reading is halfway between life and dreaming, our own consciousness in someone else's mind.
Anna QuindlenRead
The myth that everyone once read great literature is just a myth.
Margaret AtwoodRead
Size matters in fiction, but so does lack of size. Everything else being equal, fat novels tend to be perceived as serious, very thin ones as more honest, more real. Writers address these age-old expectations by filling their big books with philosophy and cramming their little ones with feeling.
Walter KirnRead
The things that the novel does not say are necessarily more numerous than those it does say and only a special halo around what is written can give the illusion that you are reading also what is not written.
Italo CalvinoRead
I think of my pile of old paperbacks, their pages gone wobbly, like they'd once belonged to the sea.
Kazuo IshiguroRead
I am trying to make clear through my writing something which I believe: that biography- history in general- can be literature in the deepest and highest sense of that term.
Robert CaroRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.