Plot Quotes - Page 25

• The plot is so tired that even this reviewer, who in infancy was let drop by a nurse with the result that she has ever since been mystified by amateur coin tricks, was able to guess the identity of the murderer from the middle of the book.

  Dorothy Parker

  Book, Tired, Nurse

  Dorothy Parker (1970). “A month of Saturdays: thirty-one famous pieces by "Constant Reader"”

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• When we submit our lives to what we read in scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God's. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.

  Eugene H. Peterson

  Stories, Scripture, Submit

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• Living "in" a story, being part of a narrative, is much more satisfying than living without one. I don't always know what narrative it is, because I'm living my life and not always reflecting on it, but as I edit these pages I am aware that I have an urge to see my sometimes random wandering as having a plot, a purpose guided by some underlying story.

  David Byrne

  Purpose, Stories, Narrative

  David Byrne (2010). “Bicycle Diaries”, p.165, Faber & Faber

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• Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot... But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know, in 1605, he attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

  Alan Moore

  Kings, Dark, Blow

  "Fictional character: Evey Hammond". "V for Vendetta", www.imdb.com. 2005.

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• A writer always wears glasses and never combs his hair. Half the time he feels angry about everything and the other half depressed. He spends most of his life in bars, arguing with other dishevelled, bespectacled writers. He says very 'deep' things. He always has amazing ideas for the plot of his next novel, and hates the one he has just published.

  Paulo Coelho

  Hate, Glasses, Hair

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• The rule for finding plots for character-centered novels, which is to ask: 'So what's the worst possible thing I can do to *this* guy?' And then do it.

  Lois McMaster Bujold

  Character, Guy, Worst

  Lois McMaster Bujold (1999). “Cordelia's Honor”, p.389, Baen Books

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• Writing for the theater is a whole different can of fish. The music now has the responsibility of so many things. The plot could be giving you different views of the character; the emotional highlights of a moment.

  Frank Wildhorn

  Responsibility, Writing, Character

  Interview with Pati Buehler, www.broadwayworld.com. June 13, 2004.

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• All my life I thought that the story was over when the hero and heroine were safely engaged -- after all, what's good enough for Jane Austen ought to be good enough for anyone. But it's a lie. The story is about to begin, and every day will be a new piece of the plot.

  Mary Ann Shaffer

  Love, Lying, Hero

  Annie Barrows, Mary Ann Shaffer (2011). “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Random House Reader's Circle Deluxe Reading Group Edition): A Novel”, p.274, Dial Press

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• If Slater were someone else, Kevin would merely be the poor victim of a horrible plot. Unless he was killed by Slater, in which case he would be the dead victim of a horrible plot

  Ted Dekker

  Would Be, Kevin, Poor

  Ted Dekker (2008). “Dekker 2 in 1 (Obsessed & Three)”, p.287, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• I am now convinced that children should not be subjected to the frightfulness of the Christian religion [...]. If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as worthy of society's admiration, what types of human behavior can be presented to them as reprehensible?

  Ruth Hurmence Green

  Beautiful, Christian, Atheist

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• There is a theory going around that the U.S.A. was and still is a gigantic Masonic plot under the ultimate control of the group known as the Illuminati. It is difficult to look for long at the strange single eye crowning the pyramid which is found on every dollar bill and not begin to believe the story, a little. Too many anarchists in 19th-century Europe—Bakunin, Proudhon, Salverio Friscia—were Masons for it to be pure chance. Lovers of global conspiracy, not all of them Catholic, can count on the Masons for a few good shivers and voids when all else fails.

  Thomas Pynchon

  Believe, Eye, Pyramids

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• Maybe it's true that we are all descended from the restless, the nervous, the criminals, the arguers and brawlers, but also the brave and independent and generous. If our ancestors had not been that, they would have stayed in their home plots in the other world and starved over the squeezed-out soil.

  John Steinbeck

  Home, Independent, Other Worlds

  John Steinbeck (2002). “East of Eden”, p.499, Penguin

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• It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so. I admire you, beloved, for the trap you've set. It's like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over.

  Frank O'Hara

  Beautiful, Finals, Beloved

  Frank O'Hara (2005). “In Memory of My Feelings: A Selection of Poems”, p.65, The Museum of Modern Art

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• Some people's lives seem to flow in a narrative; mine had many stops and starts. That's what trauma does. It interrupts the plot. You can't process it because it doesn't fit with what came before or what comes afterward. A friend of mine, a soldier, put it this way. In most of our lives, most of the time, you have a sense of what is to come. There is a steady narrative, a feeling of "lights, camera, action" when big events are imminent. But trauma isn't like that. It just happens, and then life goes on. No one prepares you for it.

  Jessica Stern

  Light, People, Feelings

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• But he doesn't love her. I invented that. It is a plot if you imagine people in love--the lazy looping criss crosses of love, blows, stares, tears. No. It doesn't happen. No love. People meet, touch, stare into one another's faces, shake their heads clear, move on, forget. It doesn't happen.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Moving, Blow, People

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• I'm in an odd place right now in New York where I routinely get trashed by every daily drama critic and have a few allies among weekly/monthly drama critics, and you sort of plot these things out and figure it out. But it's just what any writer goes through, periods of favor, periods of disfavor. And the trick is just to keep writing and to not let an obsession.

  Tony Kushner

  New York, Drama, Writing

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• We're trained to see only male or female and to plot people into those categories when they actually don't fit neatly at all. But if we pause, watch and listen closely we'll see the multiplicity of ways in which people are sexed and gendered. There exists a range of personal identifications around woman, man, in-between-we don't even have names or pronouns that reflect that in between place but people certainly live in it.

  Minnie Bruce Pratt

  Men, Names, People

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• The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining super capitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control.... Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.

  Larry McDonald

  Mean, Government, Order

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• Use what you know. Draw from it. It doesnt always mean plot or fact. It means capturing a truth from your experiencing it, expressing values you personally feel deep down in your core.

  Andrew Stanton

  Mean, Facts, Use

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• I'm not really a plot writer - I'm more interested in the characters and sort of small events that propel the story forward.

  Sara Zarr

  Character, Events, Stories

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• A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Lying, Needs, Humans

  Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Marcelle Clements (2013). “The Sorrows of Young Werther and Selected Writings”, p.60, Penguin

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• I don't think plot as a plot means much today. I'd say that everybody has seen every plot twenty times. What they haven't seen is characters and their relation to one another. I don't worry much about plot anymore.

  Howard Hawks

  Character, Mean, Thinking

  Howard Hawks, Scott Breivold (2006). “Howard Hawks: Interviews”, p.41, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• History meets romance meets suspense! Compelling, original and wildly romantic, Beatriz Williams’ prose is stunning and the plot edge-of-your-seat gripping. OVERSEAS is an absolute triumph—I loved every page.

  Tilly Bagshawe

  Romance, Triumph, Suspense

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• I think action should be revealed through character, so if you have a plot problem, it's probably a character problem.

  Zoe Kazan

  Character, Thinking, Action

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I think situations are more important than plot and character.

  Harry Mathews

  Character, Thinking, Important

  "Agent Provocateur: Harry Matthews with Johannah Rogers". The Brooklyn Rail Interview, brooklynrail.org. June 1, 2005.

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