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Again, we are placing emphasis on what is important. To say that there is only a relatively small number of key sentences in a book does not mean that you need pay no attention to all the rest. Obviously, you have to understand every sentence.

But most of the sentences, like most of the words, will cause you no difficulty. As we pointed out in our discussion of reading speeds, you will read them relatively quickly. From your point of view as a reader, the sentences important for you are those that require an effort of interpretation because, at first sight, they are not perfectly intelligible. You understand them just well enough to know there is more to understand. They are the sentences that you read much more slowly and carefully than the rest. These may not be the sentences that are most important for the author, but they are likely to be, because you are likely to have the greatest difficulty with the most important things the author has to say. And it hardly needs remarking that those are the things you should read most carefully.

From the author's point of view, the important sentences are the ones that express the judgments on which his whole argument rests. A book usually contains much more than the bare statement of an argument, or a series of arguments. The author may explain how he came to the point of view he now holds, or why he thinks his position has serious consequences.

He may discuss the words he has to use. He may comment on the work of others. He may indulge in all sorts of supporting and surrounding discussion. But the heart of his communication lies in the major affirmations and denials he is making, and the reasons he gives for so doing. To come to grips, therefore, 1 22 HOW TO READ A BOOK

you have to see the main sentences as if they were raised from the page in high relief.

Some authors help you do this. They underline the sentences for you. They either tell you that this is an important point when they make it, or they use one or another typographical device to make their leading sentences stand out.

Of course, nothing helps those who will not keep awake while reading. We have met many readers and students who paid no attention even to such clear signs. They preferred to read on rather than stop and examine the important sentences carefully.

There are a few books in which the leading propositions are set forth in sentences that occupy a special place in the order and style of the exposition. Euclid, again, gives us the most obvious example of this. He not only states his definitions, his postulates, and his axioms-his principal propositions-at the beginning, but he also labels every proposition to be proved. You may not understand all of his statements. You may not follow all of his arguments. But you cannot miss the important sentences or the grouping of sentences for the statement of the proofs.

The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas is another book whose style of exposition puts the leading sentences into high relief. It proceeds by raising questions. Each section is headed by a question. There are many indications of the answer that Aquinas is trying to defend. A whole series of objections opposing the answer is stated. The place where Aquinas begins to argue his own point is marked by the words, "I answer that." There is no excuse for not being able to locate the important sentences in such a book-those expressing the reasons as well as the conclusions-yet even here it remains all a blur for those readers who treat everything they read as equally important-and read it all at the same speed, either fast or slow. That usually means that everything is equally unimportant.

Apart from books whose style or format calls attention to what most needs interpretation by the reader, the spotting of Determining an Author's Message 1 23

the important sentences is a job the reader must perform for himself. There are several things he can do. We have already mentioned one. If he is sensitive to the difference between passages he can understand