Here's what I want from a book, what I demand, what I pray for when I take up a novel and begin to read the first sentence: I want everything and nothing less, the full measure of a writer's heart. I want a novel so poetic that I do not have to turn to the standby anthologies of poetry to satisfy that itch for music, for perfection and economy of phrasing, for exactness of tone. Then, too, I want a book so filled with story and character that I read page after page without thinking of food or drink because a writer has possessed me, crazed with an unappeasable thirst to know what happens next. Pat Conroy
About This Quote

This quote about books is an extract from the autobiography of the authoress, Doris Lessing. It expresses her own opinion about what she wants from reading a novel. She wants to be completely absorbed into the story and gets lost in the world of fiction. The artist, Lessing, wants to read a novel that will take her away to other worlds and that will take her breath away. It should also be noted that Lessing has written many novels that have been praised for their literary merit and have won numerous awards.

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More Quotes By Pat Conroy
  1. I wanted to become the seeker, the aroused and passionate explorer, and it was better to go at it knowing nothing at all, always choosing the unmarked bottle, always choosing your own unproven method, armed with nothing but faith and a belief in astonishment.
  2. I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.
  3. It did not look like the work of God, but it might have represented the handicraft of a God with a joyous sense of humor, a dancing God who loved mischief as much as prayer, and playfulness as much as mischief.
  4. The tide was a poem that only time could create, and I watched it stream and brim and makes its steady dash homeward, to the ocean.
  5. Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.
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