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Good Short Stories Quotes & Sayings

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Top Good Short Stories Quotes

Good Short Stories Quotes By John Cheever

For me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise of battle ... A page of good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-informed and intelligent men and women carry on today in their endeavor to make sure that the fires of this planet burn peaceably. — John Cheever

Good Short Stories Quotes By William Faulkner

Yes sir. You can be more careless, you can put more trash in [a novel] and be excused for it. In a short story that's next to the poem, almost every word has got to be almost exactly right. In the novel you can be careless but in the short story you can't. I mean by that the good short stories like Chekhov wrote. That's why I rate that second - it's because it demands a nearer absolute exactitude. You have less room to be slovenly and careless. There's less room in it for trash. — William Faulkner

Good Short Stories Quotes By Paul Theroux

Anything is possible on a train: a great meal, a binge, a visit from card players, an intrigue, a good night's sleep, and strangers' monologues framed like Russian short stories. — Paul Theroux

Good Short Stories Quotes By Camron Wright

One of the first lessons that I hope you grasp is that woven into meaningful literature, so tightly that it can't be separated, is a telling lesson, even in stories as short as this one."
"Always?" I ask.
"Always!" she confirms. "Good stories teach! — Camron Wright

Good Short Stories Quotes By MFR

God, he was an evil bastard, but boy was he good! — MFR

Good Short Stories Quotes By Robert Barry

I was also a good writer, by the way. My, you know, my English teacher and writing teacher loved my writing. You know, I wrote short stories and things like that. And they liked them very much. — Robert Barry

Good Short Stories Quotes By Elizabeth McCracken

Once I started writing novels, I understood how hard it was to write really good short stories. — Elizabeth McCracken

Good Short Stories Quotes By Petina Gappah

Wafa Wanaka, our elders say. Not only does this mean that death is the ultimate peace, it also means that we are not to speak ill of the dead. Once a person has crossed over to the real of the spirits, he takes his transgressions with him, and we speak only of the good. - 'Something Nice from London — Petina Gappah

Good Short Stories Quotes By Luca Rossi

It's not enough to have good ideas, you need to master their implementation.

Rossi, Luca (2014-06-22). Galactic Energies: Science fiction and fantasy short stories (p. 20). . Kindle Edition. — Luca Rossi

Good Short Stories Quotes By Sarah Dessen

I love YA, and it's been a really good fit for me. But at some point, I would like to try something else: a collection of short stories, or writing about something other than high school. A lot has happened to me since I was eighteen. — Sarah Dessen

Good Short Stories Quotes By Debra Holland

She allowed herself to relax and enjoy the wave of applause breaking over them. Marta glanced at her mother, who had tears running down her face, but her smile was the happy one Marta hadn't seen in a long time. She no longer looked drawn and sad, but the pretty Mutti her Vati had adored.
A hand brushed her head. But when she turned to look, no one stood close to that side of her. But she caught a whiff of a familiar scent, cigars- and-Vati smell, and knew in her heart her father had come to listen to her sing. — Debra Holland

Good Short Stories Quotes By Catherynne M Valente

I just want to know...if I am special,' finished September, halfway between a whisper and a squeak. 'In stories, when someone appears in a poof of green clouds and asks a girl to go away on an adventure, it's because she's special, because she's smart and strong and can solve riddles and fight with swords and give really good speeches, and . . . I don't know that I'm any of those things. I don't even know that I'm as ill-tempered as all that. I'm not dull or anything, I know about geography and chess, and I can fix the boiler when my mother has to work. But what I mean to say is: Maybe you meant to go to another girl's house and let her ride on the Leopard. Maybe you didn't mean to choose me at all, because I'm not like storybook girls. I'm short and my father ran away with the army and I wouldn't even be able to keep a dog from eating a bird. — Catherynne M Valente

Good Short Stories Quotes By Nora Ephron

I loathed being sixty-four, and I will hate being sixty-five. I don't let on about such things in person; in person, I am cheerful and Pollyannaish. But the honest truth is that it's sad to be over sixty. The long shadows are everywhere - friends dying and battling illness. A miasma of melancholy hangs there, forcing you to deal with the fact that your life, however happy and successful, has been full of disappointments and mistakes, little ones and big ones. There are dreams that are never quite going to come true, ambitions that will never quite be realized. There are, in short, regrets. Edith Piaf was famous for singing a song called "Non, je ne regrette rien." It's a good song. I know what she meant. I can get into it; I can make a case that I regret nothing. After all, most of my mistakes turned out to be things I survived, or turned into funny stories, or, on occasion, even made money from. But — Nora Ephron

Good Short Stories Quotes By Samantha Bacchus

Although your marrows look very good, it's not them I'm interested in.. (The Honesty Box) Love Potion — Samantha Bacchus

Good Short Stories Quotes By Elmore Leonard

I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words. — Elmore Leonard

Good Short Stories Quotes By Janis Ian

I want to do some fiction writing, I've had some pretty good luck with short stories, I'd like to do a couple of larger things. — Janis Ian

Good Short Stories Quotes By David Sedaris

A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit. — David Sedaris

Good Short Stories Quotes By Elmore Leonard

The truth is that the writers who most influenced me weren't people categorized as crime writers. I'd say I learned more from John O'Hara, who isn't much read today but whose short stories I really admired, and Hemingway, who I think has lasted pretty good. — Elmore Leonard

Good Short Stories Quotes By Dean Koontz

Six billion of us walking the planet, six billion smaller worlds on the bigger one. Shoe salesmen and short-order cooks who look boring from the outside - some have weirder lives than you. Six billion stories, every one an epic, full of tragedy and triumph, good and evil, despair and hope. You and me - we aren't so special, bro. — Dean Koontz

Good Short Stories Quotes By Walter Dean Myers

I was a good student, but a speech impediment was causing problems. One of my teachers decided that I couldn't pronounce certain words at all. She thought that if I wrote something, I would use words I could pronounce. I began writing little poems. I began to write short stories, too. — Walter Dean Myers

Good Short Stories Quotes By Debra Holland

I'll get right to the point," Mr. Carter said. "For the last year, we've been searching for a sheriff for our town." He grimaced. "Wouldn't have thought finding one would be so difficult."...
"She hasn't said yes," Carter commented. He slanted her an inquiring glance. "Well, K.C. Granger. Will you have us?"
At the marriage-vow-sounding question, K.C. felt a smile play around her lips, perhaps the first one since Charles' murder. In keeping with the formality of his question, and because a little imp of humor prompted her, she said, "I do. — Debra Holland

Good Short Stories Quotes By Richard Small

A short story is a messenger from beyond mere thought, that wanders the Earth knocking on doors, praying for a soul that will let it in. — Richard Small

Good Short Stories Quotes By Anthony Marra

I wanted to be a writer, but at the time, I spent my days working a retail job, my nights sleeping in my childhood bedroom, and while I had written short stories here and there, I didn't know how to write good fiction anymore than I knew how to perform good brain surgery. — Anthony Marra

Good Short Stories Quotes By Jess Row

I had a lot of expectations placed on me because I was already having some success with my short stories. That was not a good situation to be in. That by itself took a long time to overcome. — Jess Row

Good Short Stories Quotes By Chris Lester

Will had discovered, even before coming to the City, that his muse was, like all muses, an incredibly finicky and temperamental mistress. He'd had several good short stories over the years, a few of them bordering on brilliant, and some of them had even been published; but these gifts from his imaginary goddess of inspiration were, in truth, frustratingly infrequent. She would hang around and whisper in his ears for hours, or days, or weeks, and then suddenly go off on an extended vacation without informing Will of her whereabouts or when she planned to return. — Chris Lester

Good Short Stories Quotes By F Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald to Zelda's DR. Oct. 1932

"Why can't I sell my short stories?" she says.

"Because you're not putting yourself in them. Do you think the Post pays me for nothing?"

(She wants to make money but she wants to save her good stuff for books so her stories are simply casually observed, unfelt phenomena, while mine are sectiobs, debased, over- simplified, if you like, of my own soul. That is our bread and butter and her health and Scotty's education.) p. 221 — F Scott Fitzgerald

Good Short Stories Quotes By Ellen Klages

Short stories are my favorite art form. A good one is compact and complete, a telling little slice of life, capturing a moment in time that - for the character - defines her, changes her, is the tipping point for all that will follow. — Ellen Klages

Good Short Stories Quotes By Leslie Charteris

Others, amounting to four novels and a mess of short stories which I did not think worth preserving, I have done my best to eliminate from the record by refusing all requests for permission to reprint them, and I hope I have done a good job of making them hard to unearth. — Leslie Charteris

Good Short Stories Quotes By Markus Zusak

I don't write poetry or short stories. I don't like to write articles usually. I tend to really only want to be focused on writing novels. It's one of the real advantages I've had over the years. I've only been good at one thing. It helps to be limited. — Markus Zusak

Good Short Stories Quotes By John Hopkins

Bentley is a good bee with a shaky sense of direction and an appetite for mayhem. Just don't call him a drone. He hates that. — John Hopkins

Good Short Stories Quotes By David Sedaris

There are a lot of college writing textbooks that will include essays and short stories, and after reading the story or essay, there will be questions such as "Have YOU Had any experience with a pedophile in YOUR family?" or "When was the last time you saw YOUR mother drunk?" and they're just really good at prompting stories. You answer the question, and sometimes that can spring into a story. — David Sedaris

Good Short Stories Quotes By Pete Hamill

As a reporter, going around, you hear stories you can't prove, which means you can't put them in the newspaper. But they're good stories, and I would jot them down thinking maybe one day I could write that as a short story. — Pete Hamill

Good Short Stories Quotes By David Levithan

Yes, we could talk to you for days on end about all the bad first dates. Those are stories. Funny stories. Awkward stories. Stories we love to share, because by sharing them, we get something out of the hour or two we wasted on the wrong person. But that's all bad first dates are: short stories. Good first dates are more than short stories. They are first chapters. On a good first date, everything is springtime.
And when a good first date becomes a relationship, the springtime lingers. Even after it's over, there can be springtime. — David Levithan

Good Short Stories Quotes By Dan Bern

Even when there's not a joke or a hook, the first line has to be good and snapem to attention. Songs ain't novels. You don't have 30 pages to slowly wrap somebody in. They're more like short stories or poems. If the first line hasn't grabbed them, you won't get to the second line. Once you've developed an audience, you may have some luxury and trust, so you don't have to knock 'em over the head with line one. — Dan Bern

Good Short Stories Quotes By Richard Wright

I had written a book of short stories which was published under the title of "Uncle Tom's Children". When the review of that book began to appear, I realized that I had made an awful naive mistake. I found that I had written a book which even bankers' daughters could read and weep over and feel good about. I swore to myself that if I ever wrote another book, no one would weep over it; that it would be so hard and deep that they would have to face it without the consolation of tears. — Richard Wright

Good Short Stories Quotes By Sarah Silverman

Take lots of time for yourself, discovering yourself-pursue not only a profession but other life passions, I always make time to rock climb or hike or write a few short stories. Also, find good people and surround yourself with them. Most importantly, always believe you will, unequivocally. — Sarah Silverman

Good Short Stories Quotes By Haruki Murakami

One more nice thing about short stories is that you can create a story out of the smallest details -an idea that springs up in your mind, a word, an image, whatever. In most cases it's like jazz improvisation, with the story taking me where it wants to. And another good point is that with short stories you don't have to worry about failing. If the idea doesn't work out the way you hoped it would, you just shrug your shoulders and tell yourself that they can't all be winners. Even with masters of the genre like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Raymond Carver -even Anton Chekhov- not every short story is a masterpiece. I find this a great comfort. You can learn from your mistakes (in other words, those you can't call complete success) and use that in the next story you write. — Haruki Murakami

Good Short Stories Quotes By V.S. Pritchett

The makers of the short story have rarely been good novelists. — V.S. Pritchett

Good Short Stories Quotes By W. H. Auden

Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at night, but do not enter into relations. But not for the novel. — W. H. Auden

Good Short Stories Quotes By Henry Seidel Canby

The short story, its course plotted and its form proscribed, has become too efficient ... but efficiency is not the most, it is perhaps the least, important among the undoubted elements of good literature — Henry Seidel Canby

Good Short Stories Quotes By Jasper Fforde

I started writing because I wanted to write scripts, but I wasn't very good at it. Then I started writing short stories, sort of as treatments for the film scripts, and I found I enjoyed writing short stories far more than I enjoyed writing film scripts. Then the short stories got longer and longer and suddenly, I had novels. — Jasper Fforde

Good Short Stories Quotes By Joe Hill

I tell writers not to think about writing short stories or novels. Just write one good scene. And then a novel becomes a bunch of good scenes stacked on top of each other. — Joe Hill

Good Short Stories Quotes By James A. Michener

The rules seem to be these: If you have written a successful novel, everyone invites you to write short stories. If you have written some good short stories, everyone wants you to write a novel. But nobody wants anything until you have already proved yourself by being published somewhere else. — James A. Michener

Good Short Stories Quotes By Kurt Vonnegut

Somebody will beat both [contents and price] sooner or later because that is good old Free Enterprise, where the consumer benefits from battles between jolly green giants. — Kurt Vonnegut

Good Short Stories Quotes By Neil Gaiman

Most people can start a short story or a novel. If you're a writer, you can finish them. Finish enough of them, and you may be good enough to be publishable. — Neil Gaiman

Good Short Stories Quotes By Jane Ciabattari

Ciabattari is a master of transformation as she gives these stories of loss, woe, crisis and collapse the salutary and sometimes bracing pleasures of plain good fiction.
Kirkus Reviews — Jane Ciabattari

Good Short Stories Quotes By Jess Nevins

Gray Man. The Gray Man was created by Sarah Orne Jewett and appeared in "The Gray Man" (A White Heron and Other Stories, 1886). Jewett also created Lady Ferry. "The Gray Man" is one of Jewett's best supernatural short stories, which means it is very good indeed. — Jess Nevins

Good Short Stories Quotes By Walter Mosley

These short stories are vast structures existing mostly in the subconscious of our cultural history. They will live with the reader long after the words have been translated into ideas and dreams. That's because a good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs. A good short story asks a question that can't be answered in simple terms. And even if we come up with some understanding, years later, while glancing out of a window, the story still has the potential to return, to alter right there in our mind and change everything. — Walter Mosley

Good Short Stories Quotes By John Wyndham

You can't kill an idea the way they try to. You can keep it down awhile, but sooner or later it'll come out. Now what you've got to understand is that the wheel's not evil. Never mind what the scared men all tell you. no discovery is good or evil until men make it that way. -The Wheel, John Wtndham — John Wyndham

Good Short Stories Quotes By Dacia Maraini

Don't wait for success, but for the respect and interest of those who read you. At the start it could be a classmate, someone who shares your interests. Before sending off the manuscript for a novel to a publishing house, it would be a good idea to try writing short stories, and publishing them in a local magazine. — Dacia Maraini

Good Short Stories Quotes By Daniel Quinn

When you send off a short story, it sits on the editor's desk in the same pile with stories by the most famous and honored names in present-day writing-and it's not going to be accepted unless it's as good as theirs. (And it'll probably have to be better.) — Daniel Quinn

Good Short Stories Quotes By Orson Scott Card

Short stories are designed to deliver their impact in as few pages as possible. A tremendous amount is left out, and a good short story writer learns to include only the most essential information. — Orson Scott Card

Good Short Stories Quotes By Natasha Trethewey

I started out in graduate school to be a fiction writer. I thought I wanted to write short stories. I started writing poems at that point only because a friend of mine dared me to write a poem. And I took the dare because I was convinced that I couldn't write a good poem ... And then it actually wasn't so bad. — Natasha Trethewey

Good Short Stories Quotes By A.G. Riddle

That's what great books are about, revealing our life in a way stories only can. We see ourselves in the characters, our own struggles and short comings in a way that's non threatening and non judgmental. We learn from the characters we take those lessons and inspirations back to the real world I believe that a good book leaves its readers better then they were before. — A.G. Riddle

Good Short Stories Quotes By Eric Brown

The market for short stories is hard to break into, but a magazine editor isn't always looking for big names with which to sell his magazine - they're more willing to try stories by newcomers, if those tales are good. — Eric Brown

Good Short Stories Quotes By Orson Scott Card

You can't write a novel all at once, any more than you can swallow a whale in one gulp. You do have to break it up into smaller chunks. But those smaller chunks aren't good old familiar short stories. Novels aren't built out of short stories. They are built out of scenes. — Orson Scott Card

Good Short Stories Quotes By Colm Toibin

Three of my novels and a good number of my short stories are told from the point of view of men. I was brought up in a house of women. — Colm Toibin

Good Short Stories Quotes By Kurt Vonnegut

I think I succeeded as a writer because I did not come out of an English department. I used to write in the chemistry department. And I wrote some good stuff. If I had been in the English department, the prof would have looked at my short stories, congratulated me on my talent, and then showed me how Joyce or Hemingway handled the same elements of the short story. The prof would have placed me in competition with the greatest writers of all time, and that would have ended my writing career. — Kurt Vonnegut

Good Short Stories Quotes By Debra Dean

Once I had started, I discovered the secret pleasure of writing a novel. It's such an immersive, deep commitment. With short stories, you're continually having to start again from scratch, but with a novel you only need one good idea every few years. — Debra Dean

Good Short Stories Quotes By Ruth Rendell

I started by writing short stories, but they weren't very good; I tried them on various magazines, and none of them was published. People were nicer then about turning you down, and so I didn't lose heart - I kept on writing and wrote a lot of books, one or two of which I finished, and others I didn't. — Ruth Rendell

Good Short Stories Quotes By Theodore Roosevelt

Now and then I am asked as to "what books a statesman should read," and my answer is, poetry and novels - including short stories under the head of novels. I don't mean that he should read only novels and modern poetry. If he cannot also enjoy the Hebrew prophets and the Greek dramatists, he should be sorry. He ought to read interesting books on history and government, and books of science and philosophy; and really good books on these subjects are as enthralling as any fiction ever written in prose or verse. — Theodore Roosevelt