Book Readable Quotes

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Books: a beautifully browsable invention that needs no electricity and exists in a readable form no matter what happens.
Nicholson Baker
I am a product [...of] endless books. My father bought all the books he read and never got rid of any of them. There were books in the study, books in the drawing room, books in the cloakroom, books (two deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds reflecting every transient stage of my parents' interest, books readable and unreadable, books suitable for a child and books most emphatically not. Nothing was forbidden me. In the seemingly endless rainy afternoons I took volume after volume from the shelves. I had always the same certainty of finding a book that was new to me as a man who walks into a field has of finding a new blade of grass.
C.S. Lewis
All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.
George Orwell (Why I Write)
Of all needs a book has, the chief need is to be readable.
Anthony Trollope
We are absurdly accustomed to the miracle of a few written signs being able to contain immortal imagery, involutions of thought, new worlds with live people, speaking, weeping, laughing. We take it for granted so simply that in a sense, by the very act of brutish routine acceptance, we undo the work of the ages, the history of the gradual elaboration of poetical description and construction, from the treeman to Browning, from the caveman to Keats. What if we awake one day, all of us, and find ourselves utterly unable to read? I wish you to gasp not only at what you read but at the miracle of its being readable.
Vladimir Nabokov (Pale Fire)
How does it happen that a writer who's not even very good - and I can say that, I've read four or five of his books - gets to be in charge of the world's destiny? Or of the entire universe's?" If he's not very good, why didn't you stop at one?" Mrs. Tassenbaum smiled. "Touché. He is readable, I'll give him that - tells a good story...
Stephen King (The Dark Tower (The Dark Tower, #7))
I’m a freelance editor. I turn decent books into decently readable books and hopeless books into hopeless books with better grammar.
T. Kingfisher (The Twisted Ones)
All books have to be researched, but readable books have their research buried.
Joshua Cohen (Book of Numbers)
I think there are many ways to matter." He plucks the book from his pocket. "These are the words of a man - Voltaire. But they are also the hands that set the type. The ink that made it readable, the tree that made the paper. All of them matter, though credit goes only to the name on the cover.
Victoria E. Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
Of all reviews, the crushing review is the most popular, as being the most readable.
Anthony Trollope (The Way We Live Now)
His lamp shines on my head, and by His light I go through darkness,
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Books are readable drugs.
Carla H. Krueger
Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unnecessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done. Above all, worldbuilding is not technically necessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, & if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder’s victim, & makes us very afraid.
M. John Harrison
I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I have been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but there is nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell musty. I wish I could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How delightful it must be to write books after one's own taste instead of reading other people's! Home-made books must be so nice.
George Eliot (Daniel Deronda)
Perhaps you thought that “getting it working” was the first order of business for a professional developer. I hope by now, however, that this book has disabused you of that idea. The functionality that you create today has a good chance of changing in the next release, but the readability of your code will have a profound effect on all the changes that will ever be made.
Robert C. Martin (Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship (Robert C. Martin Series))
Agatha Christie called her books 'yarns'. A good yarn is very readable.
Barbara Bothwell
Jesus has given me rest by means of His sorrow and life by means of His death!
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
She'd become an English major for the purest and dullest of reasons: because she liked to read. The university’s “British and American Literature Course Catalog” was, for Madeleine, what its Bergdorf equivalent was for her roommates. A course listing like “English 274: Lily’s Euphues” excited Madeleine the way a pair of Fiorucci cowboy boots did Abby. “English 450A: Hawthorne and James” filled Madeleine with an expectation of sinful hours in bed not unlike what Olivia got from wearing a Lycra skirt and leather blazer in Danceteria. Even as a girl in their house in Prettrybrook, Madeleine wandered into the library, with its shelves of books rising higher than she could reach … and the magisterial presence of all those potentially readable words stopped her in her tracks.
Jeffrey Eugenides
Designers provide ways into—and out of—the flood of words by breaking up text into pieces and offering shortcuts and alternate routes through masses of information. (...) Although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design’s most humane functions is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.
Ellen Lupton (Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, and Students)
You can see that the law can both discover and condemn sin, but it has no power to control it.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
God have mercy on a sinner like me and enable me to know and believe in Jesus Christ. For I understand that if the righteousness of Christ was not available or if I didn’t have faith in that righteousness, then I would be utterly rejected from your presence. Lord, I’ve heard that you’re a merciful God and have ordained that your Son, Jesus Christ, should be the Savior of the world.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
First, relax. ... And my second helpful hint is that you should not try to memorize anything you read in this book. ... My two words of advice are exemplified in what I call the Russian Novel Phenomenon. Every reader must have experienced that depressing moment about fifty pages into a Russian novel when we realize that we have lost track of all the characters, the variety of names by which they are known, their family relationships and relative ranks in the civil service. At this point we can give in to our anxiety, and start again to read more carefully, trying to memorize all the details on the offchance that some may prove to be important. If such a course is followed, the second reading is almost certain to be more incomprehensible than the first. The probable result: one Russian novel lost forever. But there is another alternative: to read faster, to push ahead, to make sense of what we can and to enjoy whatever we make sense of. And suddenly the book becomes readable, the story makes sense, and we find that we can remember all the important characters and events simply because we know what is important. Any re-reading we then have to do is bound to make sense, because at least we comprehend what is going on and what we are looking for.
Frank Smith
Do you think a life has any value if one doesn’t leave some mark upon the world?' Remy’s expression sobers, and he must read the sadness in her voice, because he says, 'I think there are many ways to matter.' He plucks the book from his pocket. 'These are the words of a man—Voltaire. But they are also the hands that set the type. The ink that made it readable, the tree that made the paper. All of them matter, though credit goes only to the name on the cover.' He has misread her, of course, assumed the question stemmed from a different, more common fear. Still, his words hold weight—though it will be years before Addie discovers just how much.
Victoria E. Schwab
These two children represent the men of this world. Patience represents the men who are willing to wait for their inheritance, but Passion represents the men who want their inheritance now, in this present world. He cannot wait until the next year, that is, until eternity.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
the printers who set the books in type still depended on accurate, readable, handwritten transcriptions, often of manuscripts that were illegible to all but a few.
Stephen Greenblatt (The Swerve: How the World Became Modern)
Looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don’t want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a POLITICAL purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.
George Orwell (Essays)
Years ago in 1959 when Dellinger was already an editor on Liberation (then an anarchist-pacifist magazine, of worthy but not very readable articles in more or less vegetarian prose) Mailer had submitted a piece, after some solicitation, on the contrast between real obscenity in advertising, and alleged obscenity in four-letter words. The piece was no irreplaceable work of prose, and in fact was eventually inserted quietly into his book, Advertisements for Myself, but it created difficulty for the editorial board at Liberation, since there was a four-letter word he had used to make his point, the palpable four-letter word which signifies a woman’s most definitive organ: these editorial anarchists were decorous; they were ready to overthrow society and replace it with a communion of pacifistic men free of all laws, but they were not ready to print cunt.
Norman Mailer (The Armies of the Night: History as a Novel, the Novel as History)
Then she reached for her bag and took out a small book. She explained she had found it at a store near her home, and that it described the nature of your character based on the date of your birth. (...) I thought some of it was true and some of it was not, but the real truth was how such things allowed someone to talk about you, or what you had done or why you did it, in a way that unraveled your character into distinct traits. It made you seem readable to them, or to yourself, which could feel like a revelation.
Jessica Au (Cold Enough for Snow)
I think there are many ways to matter.” He plucks the book from his pocket. “These are the words of a man—Voltaire. But they are also the hands that set the type. The ink that made it readable, the tree that made the paper. All of them matter, though credit goes only to the name on the cover.
Victoria E. Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
I think there are many ways to matter.' He plucks the book from his pocket. 'These are the words of a man—Voltaire. But they are also the hands that set the type. The ink that made it readable, the tree that made the paper. All of them matter, though credit goes only to the name on the cover.
Victoria E. Schwab
Obstinate was curious and asked, “What are the things you are searching for that can’t be found in this world?” “I’m searching for a joy that does not fade,” replied Christian, “a secure inheritance in Heaven that cannot be corrupted and will be given at the appointed time to those who earnestly search for it.” He held out the book in his hand. “Don’t take my word for it. Read it in my book.”11
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Literature is the extant body of written art. All novels belong to it. The value judgement concealed in distinguishing one novel as literature and another as genre vanishes with the distinction. Every readable novel can give true pleasure. Every novel read by choice is read because it gives true pleasure. Literature consists of many genres, including mystery, science fiction, fantasy, naturalism, realism, magical realism, graphic, erotic, experimental, psychological, social, political, historical, bildungsroman, romance, western, army life, young adult, thriller, etc., etc…. and the proliferating cross-species and subgenres such as erotic Regency, noir police procedural, or historical thriller with zombies. Some of these categories are descriptive, some are maintained largely as marketing devices. Some are old, some new, some ephemeral. Genres exist, forms and types and kinds of fiction exist and need to be understood: but no genre is inherently, categorically superior or inferior. (Hypothesis on Literature vs. Genre)
Ursula K. Le Guin
He remembered Amy reading a review of The Organ-Grinder’s Boy which had first acknowledged the book’s pace and readability, and then suggested a certain derivativeness in its plotting. She’d said, “So what? Don’t these people know there are only about five really good stories, and writers just tell them over and over, with different characters?” Mort himself believed there were at least six stories: success; failure; love and loss; revenge; mistaken identity; the search for a higher power, be it God or the devil. He had told the first four over and over, obsessively,
Stephen King (Four Past Midnight)
Most people will likely encounter Ingeborg’s showy Display variants: the decorative fill and shadow of Block, and the buxom swashes of Fat Italic. These are indeed finely crafted crowd-pleasers, but the typeface’s more important contribution to typography is in the text weights. Michael Hochleitner managed to comfortably combine the neoclassical glamour of Didones, the readability of other Rational typefaces like the Scotch Romans, and the sturdiness of a slab serif. The result is a very original design that is both beautiful and practical. Good for: Books. Magazines. Substance and style.
Stephen Coles (The Anatomy of Type: A Graphic Guide to 100 Typefaces)
If you are looking to better understand the nitty-gritty of venture finance, there’s no better book than Venture Deals by Brad Feld, one of the venture world’s more well-respected practitioners, and Jason Mendelson, one of his partners. The book offers a readable primer on everything from the basics of a venture term sheet to negotiating tactics to the specific issues likely to come up at every round of funding. I’ll quote Dick Costello, the former CEO of Twitter, who said in an endorsement of the book that he wished this book had been around in his time to save him from having to learn “all the tricks, traps, and nuances on my own.
Gary Rivlin (Becoming a Venture Capitalist (Masters at Work))
Hello everyone. I would like to thank all of you for getting me here. This day is a huge milestone for me. I would like to thank all of the people who have supported me from the start till the end. I would like to thank the people who have also given me advice. I would like to thank most my english teacher for making my vocabulary so rich and my language so fluent and readable. I am very grateful for her and my improvements are all because of her. I have published this book on my first anniversary of being an Author. I am happy beyond understanding and feel that I should make my next year of writing a much more successful one than my first year.
Divyansh Gupta (Diary of a Human Hero 8: Unofficial Minecraft Book)
GENERAL BOOKS ABOUT LANGUAGE Highly readable, witty, and provocative is Roger Brown’s Words and Things. Also readable, magnificent, though sometimes too dogmatic, is Eric H. Lenneberg’s Biological Foundations of Language. The deepest and most beautiful explorations of all are to be found in L. S. Vygotsky’s Thought and Language, originally published in Russian, posthumously, in 1934, and later translated by Eugenia Hanfmann and Gertrude Vahar. Vygotsky has been described—not unjustly—as “the Mozart of psychology.” A personal favorite of mine is Joseph Church’s Language and the Discovery of Reality: A Developmental Psychology of Cognition, a book one goes back to again and again.
Oliver Sacks (Seeing Voices)
A true work of grace in the heart is easily recognized by the person that has it or by others that are observing him. For the person that has it, he finds himself under conviction for his sin, especially concerning the defilement of his own body. He’s also convicted for the sin of unbelief, for which he is sure to be damned unless he finds mercy at God’s hand through faith in Jesus Christ. The knowledge of sin and his inward convictions cause him to feel sorrow and shame.116 “But then he finds Jesus Christ as his Savior and the absolute necessity of living for and with Him for the rest of his life. And when he does, he experiences a hunger and thirst for Him based on the promise, ‘blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and they will be filled.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Woolrich had a genius for creating types of story perfectly consonant with his world: the noir cop story, the clock race story, the waking nightmare, the oscillation thriller, the headlong through the night story, the annihilation story, the last hours story. These situations, and variations on them, and others like them, are paradigms of our position in the world as Woolrich sees it. His mastery of suspense, his genius (like that of his spiritual brother Alfred Hitchcock) for keeping us on the edge of our seats and gasping with fright, stems not only from the nightmarish situations he conjured up but from his prose, which is compulsively readable, cinematically vivid, high-strung almost to the point of hysteria, forcing us into the skins of the hunted and doomed where we live their agonies and die with them a thousand small deaths.
Francis M. Nevins Jr. (Night and Fear: A Centenary Collection of Stories by Cornell Woolrich (Otto Penzler Book))
Sara, who snatched her lessons at all sorts of untimely hours from tattered and discarded books, and who had a hungry craving for everything readable, was often severe upon them in her small mind. They had books they never read; she had no books at all. If she had always had something to read, she would not have been so lonely. She liked romances and history and poetry; she would read anything. There was a sentimental housemaid in the establishment who bought the weekly penny papers, and subscribed to a circulating library, from which she got greasy volumes containing stories of marquises and dukes who invariably fell in love with orange-girls and gypsies and servant-maids, and made them the proud brides of coronets; and Sara often did parts of this maid's work so that she might earn the privilege of reading these romantic histories.
Frances Hodgson Burnett (Sara Crewe or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's)
Remy nods thoughtfully. "Small places make for small lives. And some people are fine with that. They like knowing where to put their feet. But if you only walk in other people's steps, you cannot make your own way. You cannot leave a mark." Addie's throat tightens. "Do you think a life has bay value if one doesn't leave some mark upon the world?" Remy's expression sobers, and he must read the sadness in her voice, because he says, "I think there are many ways to matter." He plucks the book from his pocket. "These are the words of a man - Voltaire. But they are also the hands that set the type. The ink that made it readable, the tree that made the paper. All of them matter, though credit goes only to the name on the cover." He has misread her, of course, assumed the question stemmed from a different, more common fear. Still, his words hold weight -- though it will be years before Addie discovers just how much.
Victoria E. Schwab (The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue)
The business is a simple one. Hiro gets information. It may be gossip, videotape, audiotape, a fragment of a computer disk, a xerox of a document. It can even be a joke based on the latest highly publicized disaster. He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library, formerly the Library of Congress, but no one calls it that anymore. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word "congress" means. And even the word "library" is getting hazy. It used to be a place full of books, mostly old ones. Then they began to include videotapes, records, and magazines. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form, which is to say, ones and zeroes. And as the number of media grew, the material became more up to date, and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated, it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. Fortuitously, this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering.
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
Absorbingly articulate and infinitely intelligent . . . There is nothing pop about Kahneman's psychology, no formulaic story arc, no beating you over the head with an artificial, buzzword -encrusted Big Idea. It's just the wisdom that comes from five decades of honest, rigorous scientific work, delivered humbly yet brilliantly, in a way that will forever change the way you think about thinking:' -MARIA POPOVA, The Atlantic "Kahneman's primer adds to recent challenges to economic orthodoxies about rational actors and efficient markets; more than that, it's a lucid, mar- velously readable guide to spotting-and correcting-our biased misunder- standings of the world:' -Publishers Weekly (starred review) "The ramifications of Kahneman's work are wide, extending into education, business, marketing, politics ... and even happiness research. Call his field 'psychonomics: the hidden reasoning behind our choices. Thinking, Fast and Slow is essential reading for anyone with a mind:' -KYLE SMITH,NewYorkPost "A stellar accomplishment, a book for everyone who likes to think and wants to do it better." - E. JAMES LIEBERMAN ,Libraryfournal "Daniel Kahneman demonstrates forcefully in his new book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, how easy it is for humans to swerve away from rationality:' -CHRISTOPHER SHEA , The Washington Post "A tour de force .. . Kahneman's book is a must-read for anyone interested in either human behavior or investing. He clearly shows that while we like to think of ourselves as rational in our decision making, the truth is we are subject to many biases. At least being aware of them will give you a better chance of avoiding them, or at least making fewer of them:' -LARRY SWEDROE, CBS News "Brilliant .. . It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of Daniel Kahne- man's contribution to the understanding of the way we think and choose. He stands among the giants, a weaver of the threads of Charles Darwin, Adam Smith and Sigmund Freud. Arguably the most important psycholo- gist in history, Kahneman has reshaped cognitive psychology, the analysis of rationality and reason, the understanding of risk and the study of hap pi- ness and well-being ... A magisterial work, stunning in its ambition, infused
Daniel Kahneman
Religion and revolution reverberated through northern Mexico like the thunder and lightning of its wild and fierce storms. This book reveals the motivation behind the madness and the role religion played in the very struggle for the soul of Mexico. During the revolution, many lived and died; lost in a thousand fields and unnamed pueblos, meaningless except to the few who knew and loved them, and who would never see them again. Whatever their cause, in the words of Philippians 2:8, they were faithful . . . even unto death. This book is for those who love Mexico and who want a research-based, yet highly readable account of the role religion played in the conflict. Often lost among the myths were the millions driven by forces they couldn’t comprehend. They were knights, bishops, castles, and yes, pawns – in the revolutionary chess matches that nearly resulted in the checkmate of Mexican civilization. It took Phil Stover three years to write this book, but La Llorona has been crying for her children for centuries. She sobs for all those who have been lost in Mexico’s turbulent past and present. Listen carefully, dear reader. Perhaps in the pages of this book you too will hear her cries!
Philip Stover
[The Book is] is a struggle to break out of the memoir genre that trans women have been relegated to for a really long time, this idea that we are only important or readable as objects to study, as objects to be used as titillation for a cisgender audience. [This narrative of] us explaining our life story of being born in the wrong body and being oppressed and overcoming it and then assimilating into a happy cis-passing straight life. That is not the reality of the vast majority of trans women I know.
Kai Cheng Thom
Clear and concise language should be the aim of most fiction authors with few exceptions. The main way to achieve this is to use simple language, as it will be more effective and communicate your meaning more easily. Using long words is not going to make you seem smarter or a better writer. Know your readers. If the novel is aimed at a tech savvy audience, then some amount of technical jargon will have to be used, but even then, simple language should be the basis for the book with the computer terms sprinkled in only as required. Keep sentences short. Nothing makes a text more difficult to read than long run-on sentences with multiple independent clauses. Also, avoid the comma splice, which is when you put together two independent clauses with the use of a comma between them. This technique is one of which I am guilty of using all too frequently. There is the Flesch-Kincaid grading system that was developed in the 1970s to evaluate the readability of text. It is widely used and gives a score based on a US grade level of reading ability. Most successful novels will have a score of no more than grade 8, which is the average person’s reading level. There are free online web pages that can evaluate text using the Flesch-Kincaid system.
Jack Orman (30 Days To A Better Novel: Unlock Your Writing Potential)
Thus we can roughly define what we mean by the art of reading as follows: the process whereby a mind, with nothing to operate on but the symbols of the readable matter, and with no help from outside,I elevates itself by the power of its own operations. The mind passes from understanding less to understanding more. The skilled operations that cause this to happen are the various acts that constitute the art of reading.
Mortimer J. Adler (How to Read a Book: the classic guide to intelligent reading)
BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY KATHLEEN MCGOWAN The Brother of Jesus and the Lost Teachings of Christianity, Jeffrey J. Butz Excellent account of early Christianity and its factions. Rev. Jeff’s understanding of Greek translations was a revelation for me. A rare scholarly work that is entirely readable and entertaining. The Woman with the Alabaster Jar, Margaret Starbird A pioneering book in Magdalene research, Starbird was one of the first to assert the theory of Magdalene as bride. Mary Magdalen, Myth and Metaphor, Susan Haskins The definitive Magdalene reference book. Massacre at Montsegur, Zoé Oldenbourg Classic, scholarly account of the final days of the Cathars. The Perfect Heresy, by Stephen O’Shea A very readable book on Cathar history. Chasing the Heretics, Rion Klawinski A history-filled memoir of traveling through Cathar country. Key to the Sacred Pattern, Henry Lincoln Fascinating theories on the sacred geometry of Rennes-le-Château and the Languedoc by one of the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Relics of Repentance, James F. Forcucci Contains the letters of Claudia Procula, the wife of Pontius Pilate. The Church of Mary Magdalene, Jean Markale Poet and philosopher Jean Markale’s quest for the sacred feminine in Rennes-le-Château. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene and The Gospel of Philip, Jean-Yves Leloup Highly readable French scholarly analyses of important Gnostic material. Nostradamus and the Lost Templar Legacy, Rudy Cambier Professor Cambier explores the prophecies of the Expected One from another angle. Who Wrote the Gospels?, Randel McCraw Helms Fascinating theories from a noted scholar on the authorship of the Gospels. Jesus and the Lost Goddess, Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy Well-researched alternative theories, also provides excellent resource list. Botticelli, Frank Zollner The ultimate coffee table book, with gorgeous reproductions of the art and great analysis of Sandro’s life and career.
Kathleen McGowan (The Expected One (Magdalene Line Trilogy, #1))
It is easy to criticise Mere Christianity on account of its simple ideas, which clearly need to be fleshed out and given a more rigorous philosophical and theological foundation. Yet Lewis wrote for multiple audiences, and it is quite clear whom Lewis envisaged here as his audience. Mere Christianity is a popular, not an academic, book, which is not directed towards a readership of academic theologians or philosophers. It is simply unfair to expect Lewis to engage here with detailed philosophical debates, when these would clearly turn his brisk, highly readable book into a quagmire of fine philosophical distinctions. Mere Christianity is an informal handshake to begin a more formal acquaintance and conversation. There is much more that needs to be said.
Alister E. McGrath (C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet)
What I glory in is the civilized, middle way between stink and asepsis. Give me a little musk, a little intoxicating feminine exhalation, the bouquet of old wine and strawberries, a lavender bag under every pillow and potpourri in the corners of the drawing-room. Readable books, amusing conversation, civilized women, graceful art and dry vintage, music, with a quiet life and reasonable comfort⁠—that’s all I ask for.
Aldous Huxley (Antic Hay)
The distinction between reading for information and reading for understanding is deeper than this. (...) What are the conditions under which this kind of reading -reading for understanding-takes place? There are two. First, there is initial inequality in understanding. The writer must be "superior" to the reader in understanding, and his book must convey in readable form the insights he possesses and his potential readers lack. Second, the reader must be able to over­ come this inequality in some degree, seldom perhaps fully, but always approaching equality with the writer. To the extent that equality is approached, clarity of communication is achieved.
Mortimer J. Adler (How to read a bookthe art of getting a liberal education)
Christian had not gone far from his own home when his wife and children came out running, pleading and begging him to come back home, but he put his hands to his ears and ran on, crying, “Life! Life! Eternal life!
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
But then you go on and you realize that the book is readable nevertheless, independently of what you expected of the author, it’s the book in itself that arouses your curiosity; in fact, on sober reflection, you prefer it this way, confronting something and not quite knowing yet what it is.
Italo Calvino (If on a Winter's Night a Traveler)
Regardless of how high and difficult this hill is, I’m determined to walk up it because I know it leads to the Way of Life. I might become weak or even scared, but I will have courage and press on because it’s better to be on the right path, even if it’s difficult, than to go an easier way that ends in misery.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design's most humane functions is in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.
Ellen Lupton
The Pseudocode Programming Process Have you checked that the prerequisites have been satisfied? Have you defined the problem that the class will solve? Is the high-level design clear enough to give the class and each of its routines a good name? Have you thought about how to test the class and each of its routines? Have you thought about efficiency mainly in terms of stable interfaces and readable implementations or mainly in terms of meeting resource and speed budgets? Have you checked the standard libraries and other code libraries for applicable routines or components? Have you checked reference books for helpful algorithms? Have you designed each routine by using detailed pseudocode? Have you mentally checked the pseudocode? Is it easy to understand? Have you paid attention to warnings that would send you back to design (use of global data, operations that seem better suited to another class or another routine, and so on)? Did you translate the pseudocode to code accurately? Did you apply the PPP recursively, breaking routines into smaller routines when needed? Did you document assumptions as you made them? Did you remove comments that turned out to be redundant? Have you chosen the best of several iterations, rather than merely stopping after your first iteration? Do you thoroughly understand your code? Is it easy to understand?
Steve McConnell (Code Complete)
Here's a top tip: get hold of a hardback edition of one of these pompous books, cut out the middle couple of hundred or more pages of it, and then you can just put your usual, normal, real people's, non-hipster, pompless, friendly-neighborhood, genuinely readable, unpretentious, happybrow, fun, top-entertainment books inside it, so that people think you're ultra-hip and highbrow and can actually make sense of that wacko shit.
A. Cretan
Icon Books has a fine series called “Revolutions in Science.” These works are succinct, highly readable, and authoritative. The series includes John Henry's Moving Heaven and Earth: Copernicus and the Solar System (Duxford, Cambridge: Icon Books, 2001). Henry's book can be read in an afternoon, and, while not as detailed as Kuhn's classic, it tells the story with verve and lucidity.
Howard Margolis (It Started With Copernicus: How Turning the World Inside Out Led to the Scientific Revolution)
Readers who are already familiar with the basic notions of graph theory should be able to skip this section: for those who want more, there are some very readable introductions such as Bollobás (1998) and Chartrand (1985).
Dominic Widdows (Geometry and Meaning (Lecture Notes Book 172))
while I hope the subject is fascinating and my treatment readable, such a book cannot be a page-turner.
Avinash K. Dixit (Microeconomics: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions))
Printed books are dirt cheap, never run out of power and survive drops, spills and being run over. And their file format will still be readable 200 years from now.
David Pogue
Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unnecessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader’s ability to fulfill their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done. “Above all, worldbuilding is not technically necessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn’t there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn’t possible, and if it was the results wouldn’t be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication and lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder and the worldbuilder’s victim, and makes us very afraid.
Wolfgang Baur (Complete Kobold Guide to Game Design)
In this sampler, Yale University Press presents chapters from three of its acclaimed and immensely readable books on the region.
John Phillips (Crisis in the Arab World)
above all I feel an obligation as a researcher who has seen the original to relay it in readable form.
Richard Lloyd Anderson (Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses)
The one who’s heart honestly desires the salvation of Christ is the one who truly believes in Christ.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
As tears filled my eyes, I asked further, ‘But, Lord, may such a great sinner as I am actually be accepted and saved by you?’ “And I heard Him say, ‘Whoever comes to me I will never cast away.’195 “Then I responded, ‘But, Lord, what is the appropriate way for me to come so that my faith is properly placed on you?’ “Then He said, ‘Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.196 He is the end of the law for righteousness to all who believe.197 He died for our sins and rose again for our justification.198 He loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood.199 He is the mediator between God and us.200 He lives to make intercession for us.’201 “It was from all of this that I understood I must look for righteousness in the person of Jesus Christ and for satisfaction for my sins by His blood.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Yes, I believed without a doubt that if I had a thousand gallons of blood in my body, I would willingly spill it all for the sake of the Lord Jesus!
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
show how the law, instead of cleansing the heart from sin, revives sin, giving it strength to grow and develop in the soul.38 You can see that the law can both discover and condemn sin, but it has no power to control it.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
true worship of God, a divine faith is required, but there can be no divine faith without a divine revelation of the will of God. Therefore, anything added to the worship of God that’s not in agreement with divine revelation is nothing but human faith, which will not result in eternal life.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Someone can cry out against sin in principle but cannot hate sin unless they have a profound godly aversion to it. I’ve heard many cry out against sin from the pulpit who do not live it out in their heart, home, and lifestyle. Take, for example, Potiphar’s wife. She cried out loudly as if she were godly and virtuous but would have committed adultery with Joseph in a heartbeat!113 Some cry out against sin while condoning it in their own lives. It’s like a mother who scolds the child in her lap when it’s behaving badly but then immediately begins to hug and embrace the same child.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
There are three things in the man’s advice that you must absolutely hate: first, his cunning ability to turn you away from the true path; secondly, his work in displaying the cross as unpleasant and repulsive; and finally, that he points you in a direction that ultimately leads to death.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
This is Christ, who, with the oil of grace, continually maintains the work already begun in the heart.42 The grace He supplies ignites the soul of His people like a roaring fire that, despite the devil’s best efforts, will never be extinguished. This is a difficult concept for man to understand—that even when we are tempted, Christ is doing all the work by supplying the grace we need to stand firm.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
As he ran to the top of what seemed like a small hill, he saw a cross and, below it, a tomb. Just as he approached the cross, his burden fell off his back and tumbled down the hill until it rolled into the opening of the tomb and was never seen again.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
He had made many pilgrims into princes, who by their own very nature were born repulsive beggars.73
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
I see that words and actions are two different things, and from now on, I will better observe this difference.” “They really are two separate things. In fact, they are as different as the body is from the spirit,” said Christian. “Perhaps it would help if you thought about it like this: The body without the spirit is dead, so the same can be said about words without action. The spirit of true faith is a transformed life. It’s written that ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.’”107
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
talking alone is not enough to prove that fruit is indeed part of the heart and life. We can be sure that on the Day of Judgment, men will be judged according to their fruit.108 No one will say then, ‘Did you believe?’ but rather, ‘Were you doers or talkers only?’ and they will be judged accordingly. The end of the world is compared to our earthly harvest,109 and you know that men at harvest want nothing but fruit and grain. But know that nothing will be accepted that’s not faith.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Moses said he would prefer dying where he stood rather than to go one more step without his God.”165
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
See that you do not refuse godly advice just like the nation of Israel did. For if God’s own people did not escape judgment and suffered for it, how much more will you suffer if you turn away from Him who warns you from heaven. And what’s more, He tells us that if we are His, we will live by faith, but if we turn our backs on Him, our souls will suffer without Him.25
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
But Evangelist caught him by the right hand and said, “Men will be forgiven for their sins and indiscretions. Don’t be like someone with no faith—you need to start believing!
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
We will be met by angels and tens of thousands of all the saints in robes so bright that our eyes will dazzle just to look at them! There will be those that have gone before us in this world and have stood for the faith and suffered greatly, including being burned on the stake, thrown to wild beasts, and drowned in the seas—all because of their love for the Lord. They will not harm us but will greet us with love because they walk with God.”18
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Even someone new to the faith could answer ten thousand such questions,” Christian said without hesitation. “According to John 6:26, it’s unlawful to follow Christ for what you think you will get out of it. How much more detestable is it then to use Him for temporary advantage in order to obtain and enjoy the world! The only ones who believe this are heathens, hypocrites, devils, and sorcerers.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
also thought about the Day of Judgment. We will not be designated to life or death according to the standards of this world but according to the wisdom and law of the most High God. “Therefore, I thought, what God says is best is indeed best, though all the men in the world are against it.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
King of Glory has said that if you wish to save your life, you must be willing to lose it. And if you follow Him but do not hate your father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and even your own life, you cannot be His disciple. Think about it like this: Worldly Wiseman wants to convince you that God’s way will lead to suffering and death, but the truth is that you cannot have eternal life without following God’s way. Therefore, you must strongly reject Worldly Wiseman’s teachings.29
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Everything that you leave behind will not even compare to the smallest portion of what I’m seeking to enjoy. If you come with me and persevere, you’ll find more than enough. I’m telling you the truth. Come with me and see!
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
The spirit of true faith is a transformed life. It’s written that ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.’”107
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Yet, L2 acquisition of word-formation devices differs from L1 acquisition. As suggested by the ‘Dual Semantic Transparency’, the Semantic Transparency of L2 word-formation morphemes is further enhanced by Orthographic & Phonological Overlap and/or by Morphological Translation Equivalence they share with their counterparts in pupils’ L1. Therefore, L2 word-formation morphemes and complex words that have to be present in elementary books should be those which share Orthographic & Phonological Overlap and/or Morphological Translation Equivalence with their counterparts in pupils’ L1. In their article, Bauer & Nation (1993) should have considered the influence pupils’ L1 has on L2 acquisition of L2 affixes. Affixes’ order, suggested by Bauer & Nation (1993), has to be reordered according to the Orthographic & Phonological Overlap and Morphological Translation Equivalence L2 affixes share with their counterparts in pupils’ L1. When teaching vocabulary, teachers have to provide the counterparts that L2 complex words have in pupils’ L1. Presenting the counterparts that L2 complex words have in pupils’ L1 assists L2 learners in transferring the decomposition capability of L1 complex words to L2 complex words. Morphological Translation Equivalence that pair complex words share with each other assist L2 learners in transferring the information of the L1 complex word to its counterpart in pupils’ L2 (e. g., transitive verbs read, lees plus suffix –able/-baar resulting in adjectives readable leesbaar).
Endri Shqerra (Acquisition of Word Formation Devices in First & Second Languages: Morphological Cross-linguistic Influence)
The grace He supplies ignites the soul of His people like a roaring fire that, despite the devil’s best efforts, will never be extinguished. This is a difficult concept for man to understand—that even when we are tempted, Christ is doing all the work by supplying the grace we need to stand firm.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
How many needless steps have I taken with no result? This is exactly what happened to Israel. They were sent back again to wander in the wilderness by way of the Red Sea because of their sin. In the same way, I’m forced to walk this way again in misery that might have been walked in joy had it not been for this sinful sleep. I know I would have been so much farther on my journey by this time! Instead, I must walk these steps three times instead of once. And now it’s starting to get dark, and the day is almost over. I wish I had never slept!
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Do you find yourself sometimes able to overcome certain thoughts while at other times find it much more difficult?” asked Prudence. “Yes, but not that often, although when they do occur, those times are truly golden.” Not completely satisfied with the answer, Prudence kept digging. “When you experience those times of overcoming your physical desires, are you aware how you defeated them?” “Oh, absolutely!” Christian said, nodding. “When I think about what I saw at the cross, that will do it. When I look upon my embroidered coat, that will do it. When I look at the certificate that I carry in my chest pocket, that will do it. And when I think about going to the Celestial City, that will do it.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
It’s not easy to condense over ten thousand years of human civilization into a readable overview. I knew that going into this, and I hope this serves as your fair warning as you begin reading this book. I’ve done my best to both provide a basic understanding of how cultures are built as well as picking interesting, atypical branches of societal development.
James Shea (World Cultures: Analyzing Pre-Industrial Societies In Africa, Asia, Europe, And the Americas)
So here you are now, ready to attack the first lines of the first page. You prepare to recognize the unmistakable tone of the author. No. You don't recognize it at all. But now that you think about it, who ever said this author had an unmistakable tone? On the contrary, he is known as an author who changes greatly from one book to the next. And in these very changes you recognize him as himself. Here, however, he seems to have absolutely no connection with all the rest he has written, at least as far as you can recall. Are you disappointed? Let’s see. Perhaps at first you feel a bit lost, as when a person appears who, from the name, you identified with a certain face, and you try to make the features you are seeing tally with those you had in mind, and it won’t work. But you go on and you realize that the book is readable nevertheless, independently of what you expected of the author, it’s the book itself that arouses your curiosity, in fact, on sober reflection, you prefer it this way, confronting something and not quite knowing yet what it is.
Italo Calvino (If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler)
readable little book by Jonathan Regenstein (Regenstein, 2018) called Reproducible Finance with R.
Ernest P. Chan (Quantitative Trading: How to Build Your Own Algorithmic Trading Business (Wiley Trading))
Duplication and transfer from other genetic sources are examples of nature’s ability to co-opt existing tools: evolution the tinkerer. Evolution also creates from scratch. We call these de novo mutations, and they arise when a seemingly nonsensical run of DNA mutates and changes into a readable sentence.
Adam Rutherford (The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War and the Evolution of Us)
Well, this is very disturbing! I pray that God will make me more aware of the traps that led to this man’s misery if it should ever come my way.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
Write a blog post on [topic] that is structured and easy to read. Begin with a clear and concise introduction that sets the tone and provides context for the topic. Use headings, subheadings, and clear paragraphs to organize and illustrate the content, making sure that the final product is organized and easy to follow. In the body of the post, make sure that each section is clearly defined and contributes to the overall message of the post. Consider the readability of the final product by using clear and concise language, while avoiding jargon or overly complex terminology. Finally, include a clear and concise conclusion that summarizes your main points and reinforces the importance of your argument. Repurposing a Blog Post for Different Audiences Description: This prompt will guide you in repurposing a blog post on the topic of your choice for a different target audience.
Aurimas Butvilauskas (The ChatGPT Prompt Library: Third Edition (Artificial Intelligence Guides Book 6))
holiness teaches him to inwardly condemn his sin and doing it in secret. It also teaches him to suppress sin in his family and to promote holiness in the world. He does so not by just talking about it, as a hypocrite or talkative person might do, but by practical application in faith and love to the power of the Word.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
A CLASSIC WAITS for me, it contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking if taste were lacking, or if the endorsement of the right man were lacking. O clublife, and the pleasures of membership, O volumes for sheer fascination unrivalled. Into an armchair endlessly rocking, Walter J. Black my president, I, freely invited, cordially welcomed to membership, My arm around John Kieran, Pearl S. Buck, My taste in books guarded by the spirits of William Lyon Phelps, Hendrik Willem Van Loon, (From your memories, sad brothers, from the fitful risings and callings I heard), I to the classics devoted, brother of rough mechanics, beauty-parlor technicians, spot welders, radio-program directors (It is not necessary to have a higher education to appreciate these books), I, connoisseur of good reading, friend of connoisseurs of good reading everywhere, I, not obligated to take any specific number of books, free to reject any volume, perfectly free to reject Montaigne, Erasmus, Milton, I, in perfect health except for a slight cold, pressed for time, having only a few more years to live, Now celebrate this opportunity. Come, I will make the club indissoluble, I will read the most splendid books the sun ever shone upon, I will start divine magnetic groups, With the love of comrades, With the life-long love of distinguished committees. I strike up for an Old Book. Long the best-read figure in America, my dues paid, sitter in armchairs everywhere, wanderer in populous cities, weeping with Hecuba and with the late William Lyon Phelps, Free to cancel my membership whenever I wish, Turbulent, fleshy, sensible, Never tiring of clublife, Always ready to read another masterpiece provided it has the approval of my president, Walter J. Black, Me imperturbe, standing at ease among writers, Rais'd by a perfect mother and now belonging to a perfect book club, Bearded, sunburnt, gray-neck'd, astigmatic, Loving the masters and the masters only (I am mad for them to be in contact with me), My arm around Pearl S. Buck, only American woman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, I celebrate this opportunity. And I will not read a book nor the least part of a book but has the approval of the Committee, For all is useless without that which you may guess at many times and not hit, that which they hinted at, All is useless without readability. By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms (89¢ for the Regular Edition or $1.39 for the DeLuxe Edition, plus a few cents postage). I will make inseparable readers with their arms around each other's necks, By the love of classics, By the manly love of classics.
E.B. White
Nowadays writers are more than readers. Now tell me how can we increase readability? Sometimes I feel that is everyone is reading complete books ?
Pranita P. Deshpande (Quotations & Stories: Thoughts)
The Interpreter then began to explain the meaning of the painting. “The man you see in this picture is one in a thousand. He can produce children,36 labor in birth pains,37 and nurse them himself when they are born. And do you see his eyes looking to heaven, the Bible in his hands, and the law of truth on his lips?” Christian nodded, listening intently to the Interpreter’s every word. “This is to show you that his work is to know and expose dark things to sinners, even as you see him standing there pleading with men. “And where you see the world behind him and the crown that hangs over his head, that’s to show you that he despises the things of this world for the love that he has for doing God’s work. He will surely receive his reward in glory.
John Bunyan (The Pilgrim's Progress: A Readable Modern-Day Version of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (The Pilgrim's Progress Series Book 1))
What are the conditions under which this kind of reading—reading for understanding—takes place? There are two. First, there is initial inequality in understanding. The writer must be “superior” to the reader in understanding, and his book must convey in readable form the insights he possesses and his potential readers lack. Second, the reader must be able to overcome this inequality in some degree, seldom perhaps fully, but always approaching equality with the writer. To the extent that equality is approached, clarity of communication is achieved.
Mortimer J. Adler (How to Read a Book)