QuoteProject
As a reader I loathe introductions...Introductions inhibit pleasure, they kill the joy of anticipation, they frustrate curiosity.
Harper Lee
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Introductions can spoil the excitement of discovering a story.

Harper Lee expresses her disdain for introductions in literature, suggesting that they can dampen the reader's enjoyment and curiosity. She believes that a well-crafted story should allow readers to enter without the predetermined notions or spoilers that introductions often provide, thereby enhancing the joy of discovering the narrative on their own terms.

Themes

IntroductionsJoyCuriosityAnticipationReading

In practice

Example use cases

Discussing the role of introductions in a book club meeting.

More from Harper Lee

They're ugly, but those are the facts of life.
Harper LeeRead
It's better to be silent than to be a fool.
Harper LeeRead
Don’t talk like that, Dill,” said Aunt Alexandra. “It’s not becoming to a child. It’s – cynical.” “I ain’t cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin’ the truth’s not cynical, is it?” “The way you tell it, it is.
Harper LeeRead
With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable.
Harper LeeRead
He turned out the light and went into Jem's room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.
Harper LeeRead
You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.
Harper LeeRead

Similar quotes

At the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all.
Mary OliverRead
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
With the single exception of Homer, there is no eminent writer, not even Sir Walter Scott, whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare when I measure my mind against his. . . . It would positively be a relief to me to dig him up and throw stones at him.
George Bernard ShawRead
There is something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can't tell which way is up. When he surfaces, he's liable to have a condition called the bends, where the body can't adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. All of this happens to me when I surface from a great book.
Nora EphronRead
Of course, the fact that Dostoevsky can tell a juicy story isn't enough to make him great. If it were, Judith Krantz and John Grisham would be great fiction writers, and by any but the most commercial standards they're not even very good.
David Foster WallaceRead
Dialogue is the place that books are most alive and forge the most direct connection with readers. It is also where we as writers discover our characters and allow them to become real.
Laini TaylorRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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