FastSaying

If a book doesn't grab me in the first chapter, I may not bother with it, ... As writers we're told that you have to catch readers in the first paragraph, but that is easier said than done.


Edwina Currie

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E. L. KONIGSBURG In that book which is my memory,
On the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first ...
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THOMAS JEFFERSON Japan, Germany, and India seem to me to have serious writers, readers, and book buyers, but the Neth...
PAUL THEROUX If you take a book with you on a journey," Mo had said when he put the first one in her box, "an odd...
CORNELIA FUNKE Readers of the twenty-first chapter must decide for themselves whether it enhances the book they pre...
ANTHONY BURGESS You will, I am sure, agree with me that... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the leng...
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE You will, I am sure, agree with me that... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the leng...
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE You will, I am sure, agree with me that... if page 534 only finds us in the second chapter, the leng...
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE SR. Maybe other writers have perfect first drafts, but I am not one of them. I always try to get the boo...
SARAH DESSEN Every event in life — the rejections, the relationships, all the embarrassing things you do will l...
MIKE ZACCHIO It seems important to me that beginning writers ponder this—that since 1964, I have never had a bo...
JOSEPH HANSEN With gamblers, it's never enough. You keep thinking on a conscious level that the prize is whate...
JASON GEDRICK If you'd have told me that before the game I would have said you were crazy. But the turnovers prett...
BRIAN SNIDER Yeah,there was a whole chapter on you in my eight grade History of Angels textbook," Miles said.
LAUREN KATE When the book comes out it may hurt you -- but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me first. I ...
JAMES BALDWIN People used to ask me if it didn't bother me that they were saying things against me that were not t...
CHARLES PICKERING Just as I could tell you about my first Andre Norton novel or my first L'Engle or my first Asimo...
PAMELA DEAN As writers, we all have an agenda, but if you recognize that agenda in a book, then you've faile...
JANET EVANOVICH I told them this is just the first chapter. ... The thing about the Tigers' 35-5 is that they ended ...
FLIP SAUNDERS No, this is not the beginning of a new chapter in my life; this is the beginning of a new book! That...
C. JOYBELL C. I try to do that in this book without preaching - to try to do as you just said that you really have...
FLOYD ABRAMS I confess that I am a messy, disorganized and impatient reader: if the book doesn't grab me in t...
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THOMAS JEFFERSON I think the best compliment you can receive is not, 'Oh, that was really funny,' but, 'I...
ERIK GRIFFIN Marriage - a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in pros...
BEVERLEY NICHOLS In order to honor God with your wealth, you first have to admit that you are rich. Most people won't...
CRAIG GROESCHEL The danger that may really threaten (crime fiction) is that soon there will be more writers than rea...
JACQUES BARZUN When I first came to this land because I did not go to such meetings as those were, it was presently...
ANNE HUTCHINSON Just about everything in this world is easier said than done, with the exception of "systematically ...
LEMONY SNICKET I adore book-to-film adaptations when they're done well, and I'm more lenient than many read...
MAGGIE STIEFVATER I know there are writers who like to say that every novel is hard, and it doesn't get easier. Th...
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BEVERLY NICHOLS I wrote my first textbook in 1970. It was called 'The Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy...
IRVIN D. YALOM It is said that chlorinated drinking water brought to troops in the First World War saved more lives...
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THOMAS JEFFERSON You may have me trapped in this.” I tug him off me. “But you aren’t the first man to underesti...
SARA RAASCH I was very impressed with our defense the first half. We didn't take care of the ball as much as I w...
CONNIE ALLEN A Plan B life can be just as good or better than a Plan A life. You just have to let go of that firs...
SHANNON L. ALDER For a professional writer in the Soviet Union, it works this way. First, you have to have something ...
ANATOLY RYBAKOV The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I ...
OLIVER GOLDSMITH The first time I read an excellent book, it is to me just as if I had gained a new friend. When I re...
OLIVER GOLDSMITH One thing that worried me was how writers get categorized and so they end up having to write the sam...
JUSTIN CRONIN Integrity is not everything, but it is the only thing that matters.
JEFFREY FRY If somebody had told me when I was in graduate school, 'Brian, in 35 years you'll get a chan...
BRIAN BINNIE My first name - I have no middle name - was chosen by my father, as he told me, on that solitary wal...
IMMANUEL VELIKOVSKY If you catch yourself wondering why you want more of the world and you're not satisfied with God, it...
CRAIG GROESCHEL I'd rather be known as the guy that won a tournament than the guy that played with Annika. It doesn'...
DEAN WILSON It was something Ferdo said. We may not have it all, you and I, but we have more than is granted mos...
MARY BROCK JONES What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but know...
J. GRESHAM MACHEN If you'd told me I'd have these problems from the first month of the season, I'd have told you were ...
MIKE HAMPTON You may not remember the time you let me go first.
Or the time you dropped back to tell me it ...
BRIAN ANDREAS Is there a Bible chapter, I wonder? Futilities, verse four, paragraph two?'
'There will be.' RAY BRADBURY What if...failure is easier said than done?
ELIZABETH ALRAUNE We always try to come out of the gates hard. We want to put away teams in the first 20 minutes, and ...
DOM WREN It is easier to write a book with footnotes than the same book written so that children can understa...
FULTON J. SHEEN Your reader is interested in a guileless, fresh, first-time-we-talked-about-it way. What a great lib...
PATRICK NESS If Jem dies, I cannot be with Tessa,” said Will. “Because it will be as if I were waiting for hi...
CASSANDRA CLARE When we were first offered a book deal prior to Avon's, they were trying to get us to change it ...
KENNY LOGGINS I use these senses - touch, sight, feel and smell - as triggers that invite readers or propel them i...
DAVID MORRELL Being present is being connected to All Things.
S. KELLEY HARRELL, M. DIV. I believe that the phrase ‘obligatory reading’ is a contradiction in terms; reading should not b...
JORGE LUIS BORGES It's a different world -- lots of press. Lots of money up there. I found out they were giving a (tru...
CLAY PERRY It is easier to suppress the first desire than to satisfy all that follow it.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN But I wasn't done. Staring into eyes that were as bright and beautiful than any tawny jewel, I said ...
JENNIFER L. ARMENTROUT When I was first introduced to CrossFit, I found it to be the hardest workout that I'd ever done...
BOB HARPER With a guy in front of you, it's that much easier. I can still lay it down and get him to second, or...
BRANDON WATSON ? Reviews are for readers AND authors. It’s a good way of learning from what people think about th...
ANA CLAUDIA ANTUNES Readers want to have the confidence that you understand the era in which the book is set, so for ...
FIONA MCINTOSH If my life is surrendered to God, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril i...
ELISABETH ELLIOT Creative work is often driven by pain. It may be that if you don't have something in the back of you...
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JOHN TRAVOLTA Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First...
MICHELLE OBAMA I'm not the fastest of writers, but I can chew through a book if I have the time to do it,
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI For readers, one of life’s most electrifying discoveries is that they are readers—not just capab...
STEPHEN KING My parents were wonderful Christians. They were religious, but they were not fanatical in any way. I...
MAGGIE ROWE I shall not pretend that I do not prefer to have people adore me rather than revile me, but I have a...
KATHRYN L. NELSON Therefore, in the course of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book all the...
NICOLAUS COPERNICUS I will not read the last page of novels first," I said, and then punched myself in the face.
"...
BRANDON SANDERSON I was very lucky to befriend many authors before even signing with an agent, and they were all so su...
ADAM SILVERA You can't put pressure on yourself, you've got to go out there and play the way you know how to play...
ROBERT ANDINO First, my doctor told me the good news. He said I was going to have a disease named after me.
STEVE MARTIN I think that if you have a knack for storytelling, and you work really hard at it, you'll have a...
ADAM ROSS I usually give a book 40 pages. If it doesn't grab me by then, adios. With young adult books, yo...
REGINA BRETT You write differently in each book. It may appear to be similar to readers, but you're a differe...
PHILIP ROTH Australian SF book publishing has undergone a boom recently, and sometimes it's easier for new w...
GREG EGAN It makes me nuts, the idea that if you put a political struggle at the heart of your book, then it h...
RUTH OZEKI If one seeks to analyze experiences and reactions to the first postwar years, I hope one may say wit...
GUSTAV STRESEMANN I don't believe that there are dangerous writers: the danger of certain books is not in the books th...
OCTAVIO PAZ Forgive me, Spirit of my spirit, for this, that I have found it easier to read the mystery told in t...
GEORGE WILLIAM RUSSELL If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you're fifty, tho...
URSULA K. LE GUIN The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book -- a book that was a dead language to the un...
MARK TWAIN ...Recognising, as I do, that you are the second highest expert in Europe--"
"Indeed, sir! May ...
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE My mother always told me not to handle a buffalo by its tail, but always catch it by its horns. And ...
LALU PRASAD YADAV

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