Gripping Quotes

My first duty to write a gripping yarn. Second is to convey credible characters who make you feel what they feel. Only third comes the idea.

David Brin

Character, Writing, Ideas

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If an American audience is given a serious musical theater piece that is well produced, dramatically gripping and wonderfully acted, they'll respond to it.

Carlisle Floyd

Musical, Pieces, Serious

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Everybody has a ‘gripping stranger’ in their lives, Andy, a stranger who unwittingly possesses a bizarre hold over you. Maybe it’s the kid in cut-offs who mows your lawn or the woman wearing White Shoulders who stamps your book at the library—a stranger who, if you were to come home and find a message from them on your answering machine saying ‘Drop everything. I love you. Come away with me now to Florida,’ you’d follow them.

Douglas Coupland

Book, Love You, Kids

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Like a child who suddenly stops sobbing when he is clasped in the arms of his mother, such will be the grip of heaven upon our souls.

Ravi Zacharias

Inspirational, Christian, Mother

Twitter post from May 10, 2015

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Father, we long for the clarity of Your truth to dawn upon our minds and for the immensity of Your love to grip our hearts.

Alistair Begg

Father, Heart, Long

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You spend a good deal of your life gripping a baseball, and it turns out it was the other way around all the time.

Jim Bouton

Success, Sports, Baseball

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I don't even own a computer. I write by hand then I type it up on an old manual typewriter. But I cross out a lot - I'm not writing in stone tablets, it's just ink on paper. I don't feel comfortable without a pen or a pencil in my hand. I can't think with my fingers on the keyboard. Words are generated for me by gripping the pen, and pressing the point on the paper.

Paul Auster

Writing, Thinking, Typewriters

"A Connoisseur of Clouds, a Meteorologist of Whims: The Rumpus Interview with Paul Auster". Interview with Juliet Linderman, therumpus.net. November 16, 2009.

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How it felt to have the world moving beneath me, a hand gripping mine, knowing if I fell, at least I wouldn't do it alone.

Sarah Dessen

Moving, Hands, Knowing

Sarah Dessen (2011). “What Happened to Goodbye”, p.136, Penguin

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I am not who I was,' he whispered, gripping the edges of the column, 'but I know who I am.'... 'And I won't give up.

Christopher Paolini

Giving Up, Who I Am, I Won't Give Up

Christopher Paolini (2012). “Inheritance Deluxe Edition (The Inheritance Cycle, Book 4)”, Knopf Books for Young Readers

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Gripping my arm, Mother held it in the orange-blue flame. My skin seemed to explode from the heat.

Dave Pelzer

Mother, Blue, Flames

Dave Pelzer (1993). “A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive”, p.41, Health Communications, Inc.

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His hands reached for me, gripping my hipbones and pulling me forward. he stared down at me, his voice low. "There are some things I will make time for, Jacqueline.

Tammara Webber

Hands, Voice, Making Time

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Gansey threw open his door. Gripping the roof of the car, he slid himself out. Even that gesture, Ronan noted, was wild-Gansey, Gansey-on-fire. Like he pulled himself from the car because ordinary climbing out was too slow. This was going to be a night.

Maggie Stiefvater

Night, Fire, Climbing

Maggie Stiefvater (2013). “The Dream Thieves (The Raven Cycle, Book 2)”, p.190, Scholastic Inc.

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I don't know why this is, but I really believe that things don't happen when we're trying to will them into being. They don't happen when we're waiting for the phone to ring, or the email to pop up in our in box. They don't happen when we're gripping too tightly. They happen - if they happen at all - when we've fully let go of the results. And, perhaps, when we're ready.

Dani Shapiro

Letting Go, Monday, Believe

"The Manifest-Station Q&A Series: Best-Selling Author Dani Shapiro". Interview with Jennifer Pastiloff, www.themanifeststation.net. September 29, 2013.

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Helen Tse tells a gripping tale of struggle, laughter, love and food that marks Sweet Mandarin as a must read book. It is not only an immigrant account of life but also a universal touching story of survival that will move your soul as well.

Ken Hom

Sweet, Laughter, Struggle

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Stories? We all spend our lives telling them, about this, about that, about people … But some? Some stories are so good we wish they’d never end. They’re so gripping that we’ll go without sleep just to see a little bit more. Some stories bring us laughter and sometimes they bring us tears … but isn’t that what a great story does? Makes you feel? Stories that are so powerful … they really are with us forever.

Dustin Hoffman

Laughter, Powerful, Sleep

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Where are you now?’ Where was I now? Gripping the receiver, I raised my hand and turned to see what lay beyond the telephone booth. Where was I now? I had no idea. No idea at all. Where was this place? All that flashed into my eyes were the countless shapes of people walking by to nowhere. Again and again, I called out for Midori from the dead center of this place that was no place.

Haruki Murakami

Eye, Hands, Ideas

FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Mar 30, 2016

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At the door , she made him promise to go without goodbyes .She closed the door on him . Laila leaned her back against it , shaking against his pounding fists , one arm gripping her belly and a hand across her mouth , as he spoke throughout the door and promised that he would come back for her . She stood there until he tired , until he gave up , and then she listened to his uneven footsteps until they faded , until all was quiet , save for the gunfire cracking in the hills and her own heart thudding in her belly , her eyes , her bones .

Khaled Hosseini

Goodbye, Tired, Heart

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Why are you worrying about YOU-KNOW-WHO, when you should be worrying about YOU-NO-POO? The constipation sensation that's gripping the nation!

J. K. Rowling

Worry, Should, Constipation

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...there is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable: I simply am not there.

Bret Easton Ellis

Real, Hands, Ideas

FaceBook post by Bret Easton Ellis from Jan 20, 2015

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There is something about spending Christmas alone, naked, sitting by the Christmas tree gripping a shotgun, that lets you know your life is spinning dangerously outta control.

Nikki Sixx

Tree, Naked, Sitting

Nikki Sixx (2008). “The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star”, p.32, Simon and Schuster

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Gosh, what a gripping story. You must have been simply terrified. Meanwhile we went to Godric's Hollow and, let's think, what happened there, Harry? Oh yes, You-Know-Who's snake turned up, it nearly killed both of us, and then You-Know-Who himself arrived and missed us by about a second. Imagine losing fingernails, Harry! That really puts our sufferings into perspective, doesn't it?

J. K. Rowling

Thinking, Snakes, Perspective

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Grace. I held on to that name. If I kept that in my head, I would be OK. Grace. I was shaking, shaking; my skin peeling away. Grace. My bones squeezed, pinched, pressed against my muscles. Grace. Her eyes held me even after I stopped feeling her fingers gripping my arms. Sam," she said. "Don't go.

Maggie Stiefvater

Eye, Names, Grace

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Why are murder mysteries so popular? There's a 3-part "formula" (if you want to call it that) for a genre novel: (1) Someone the reader likes and relates to (2) overcomes increasingly difficult obstacles (3) to reach an important goal. The more important the goal, the stronger the novel. And the most important goal that any of us have is survival. That's why murder mysteries are more gripping than a story titled "Who Stole My TV Set.

Lois Duncan

Murder Mysteries, Goal, Survival

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I staggered backward-her one hand gripping my shoulder, the other still holding my wrists behind her-and she followed until my back hit the wall.

Kim Harrison

Wall, Hands, Shoulders

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Cam held her closer. "Marry me, Amelia. You're what I want. You're my fate." One hand slid to the back of her head, gripping the braids and ribbons to keep her mouth upturned. "Say yes." He nibbled at her lips, licked at them, opened them. He kissed her until she writhed in his arms, her pulse racing. "Say it, Amelia, and save me from ever having to spend a night with another woman. I'll sleep indoors. I'll get a haircut. God help me, I think I'd even carry a pocket watch if it pleased you.

Lisa Kleypas

Sleep, Fate, Thinking

Lisa Kleypas (2007). “Mine Till Midnight”, p.240, Macmillan

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