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Readers

Readers and non-readers

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers
Thomas Jefferson

It was my job to interest them in everything that was happening, to make the arrival of the Daily Express each morning an event, to show them the world outside Bolton and Bacup, to give them courage and confidence to overcome the drabness of their lives.
Arthur Christiansen
Editor, 'Daily Express', describing his depressingly
patronising attitude to the paper's readers.

A good newspaper is never nearly good enough but a lousy newspaper is a joy forever.
Garrison Keillor
US author, producer
1990

Reading someone else's newspaper is like sleeping with someone else's wife. Nothing seems to be precisely in the right place, and when you find what you are looking for, it is not clear then how to respond to it.
Malcolm Bradbury
English novelist
'Stepping Westward'
1965.

I am unable to understand how a man of honour could take a newspaper in his hands without a shudder of disgust.
Charles Baudelaire


The pleasures of reading newspapers

My grandfather was one of a group of twelve men who paid a half-penny per week each to buy a copy of Reynold's News. The man would gather once a week in the nailshop and my gransfather would read to them.
Wesley Perrins

I read the newspapers avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction.
Aneurin Bevan
1960

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