Short Story Quotes - Page 13

• Considering that "literary fiction" is a sub-genre that's not quite the same as "literature," either, it follows that the short, semi-humorous bits posted online for all to see are something absolutely other, uniquely themselves compared to canonical short stories, for example, and so it'd probably be best to call it something other than "online lit" since I honestly think very little of it can compare to so-called "literature."

  Lee Klein

  Humorous, Thinking, Example

  Source: www.identitytheory.com

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• In my short stories there's a lot of focus on people successfully and not successfully responding to some sorts of discomforts or instabilities.

  Leni Zumas

  People, Focus, Stories

  Source: therumpus.net

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• In general, short stories are less read than before, they're less published than before and, not surprisingly, they're less taught than before.

  Lorin Stein

  Stories, Taught

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I was trying to write a song based on a story in a random book of Puerto Rican short stories that I found in a thrift store. I thought it was really dark, and so I tried to interpret it. I've always been interested in writing from other people's perspectives and other gender perspectives.

  Bradford Cox

  Song, Book, Writing

  Source: pitchfork.com

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• With short stories, the story-teller must have a story to tell, not merely some sweet prose to take out for a walk

  Herbert Gold

  Sweet, Stories, Walks

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• Make the short story tremendously succinct - with a very short pulse or rhythm - and the closest selection of detail - in other words summarise intensely and deeply and keep down the lateral development. It should be a little gem of bright, quick, vivid form

  Henry James

  Pulse, Details, Stories

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• It would seem evident, therefore, that the secret of the American short story was the treatment of characteristic American life, with absolute knowledge of its peculiarities and sympathy with its method.

  Bret Harte

  Secret, Stories, Characteristics

  Bret Harte (2001). “The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Writings”, p.222, Penguin

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• The London 'Academy' has seen fit recently to scoff at the critics who have been exercising themselves ove rthe so-called art of the Short Story... But the new Short Story has gained more individuality. It supports the magazines and has invaded the newspapers

  Henry Seidel Canby

  Art, Exercise, Support

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• I like fiction that deals with matters that are of burning importance to us in our private lives. And not all short stories are like that. In general, short stories - and maybe this is a little bit off-topic - but I think short stories have this bad association with, like, waiting rooms.

  Lorin Stein

  Bad Ass, Thinking, Waiting Rooms

  Source: therumpus.net

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• While the novel-writer aims at an eminently natural method of transcription, the author of the short story adopts a very artificial one

  Henry Seidel Canby

  Stories, Natural, Method

  Henry Seidel Canby (1902). “The Short Story”

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• A short story is simplification to the highest degree

  Henry Seidel Canby

  Degrees, Stories, Highest

  Henry Seidel Canby (1902). “Yale Studies in English”

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• The function of the Short Story is to be interesting, to convey vivid impressions, an therefore it must, to a degree, work with the evident and superficial thing

  Henry Seidel Canby

  Superficial Things, Interesting, Degrees

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• 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

  Important, Stories, Elements

  Henry Seidel Canby (1922). “Definitions: Essays in Contemporary Criticism”

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• Readers tend to devour short stories on a newssheet, but would be disinclined to read them in collections

  L.P. Hartley

  Would Be, Stories, Reader

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• I regret that there aren't more short stories in other magazines. But in a certain way, I think the disappearance of the short-story template from everyone's head can be freeing. Partly because there's no mass market for stories, the form is up for grabs. It can be many, many things. So the anthology is very much intended for students, but I think we're all in the position of writing students now. Very few people are going around with a day-to-day engagement with the short story.

  Lorin Stein

  Regret, Writing, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The first thing we see about a short story is its mystery. And in the best short stories, we return at the last to see mystery again

  Eudora Welty

  Best Short, Stories, Lasts

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• You could omit anything if you knew that the omitted part would strengthen the short story and make people feel something more than they understood

  Ernest Hemingway

  People, Stories, Feels

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• The short story packs a self in a few pages predicating a lifetime

  Bernard Malamud

  Self, Stories, Pages

  Bernard Malamud (1984). “The Stories of Bernard Malamud”

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• What you can do with a short story that you can't do with a novel is punch someone in the gut, in the best of ways.

  Peter Orner

  Novel, Guts

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I feel very protective in the first draft, when all the pieces are coming together. I work in a way that is not linear or chronological at all, even with the short story. I will just be writing bits and pieces, and then when I have all the pieces on the table, that for me is when it feels like the real work begins.

  Jill McCorkle

  Real, Writing, Together

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• The fact, and the intuition or logic about the fact, are severe coordinates in fiction. In the short story they must cross with hair-line precision.

  Louise Bogan

  Hair, Intuition, Fiction

  Louise Bogan (1970). “A Poet's Alphabet: Reflections on the Literary Art and Vocation”, New York : McGraw-Hill

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• It's difficult to write a really good short story because it must be a complete and finished reflection of life with only a few words to use as tools. There isn't time for bad writing in a short story.

  Edna Ferber

  Writing, Reflection, Tools

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• Sometimes I try my hand at turning out small profundities and uncertain short stories, but I always end up with just one single word: God.

  Etty Hillesum

  God, Hands, Trying

  Etty Hillesum, K. A. D. Smelik, Arnold Pomerans (2002). “Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum, 1941-1943”, p.640, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

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• A poem (surely someone has said this before) is a one-night stand, a short story a love affair, and a novel a marriage.

  Erica Jong

  Night, Stories, Literature

  Erica Jong (1995). “How to Save Your Own Life”, N A L Trade

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• To write a short story, you have to be able to stay up all night.

  Lorrie Moore

  Writing, Night, Stories

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