"However, it must be borne in mind that fictional texts constitute their own objects and do not copy something already in existence. For this reason they cannot have the total determinacy that enable the text to 'communicate' with the reader, in the sense that they induce him to participate both in the production and the comprehension of the work's intention."

"It is generally recognized that literary texts take on their reality by being read."

"If we view the relation between text and reader as a kind of self-regulating system, we can define the text itself as an array of sign impulses (signifiers) which are received by the reader. As he reads, there is a constant 'feedback' of 'information' already received, so that he himself is bound to insert his own ideas into the process of communication."

"The reader's communication with the text is a dynamic process of self-correction, as he formulates signifieds which he must then continually modify."

"The whole text can never be perceived at any one time."

 
"Each individual sentence correlate prefigures a particular horizon, but this is immediately transformed into the background for the next correlate and must therefore necessarily be modified. Since each sentence correlate aims at things to come, the prefigured horizon will offer a view which - however concrete it may be - must contain indeterminacies, and so arouse expectations as to the manner in which these are to be resolved. Each new correlate, then, will answer expectations (either positively or negatively) and, at the same time, will arouse new expectations."

 
"Each sentence correlate contains what one might call a hollow section, which looks forward for the next correlate, and a retrospective section, which answers the expectations of the preceding sentence."

 
"The text [is] a totality made up of several strata, from the level of the word to that of the schematized aspects. The latter arise because, unlike real objects, fictional entities contain 'spots of indeterminacy' which the reader must fill or 'concretize'. However, this does not mean that the reader can make the text mean what s/he likes; because the schematized aspects of the text provide a skeleton of determinate meanings which prompts the reader to respond in certain ways."