Short Story Quotes - Page 5

• 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

  Men, Numbers, Views

  "This Week in Fiction: Colm Tóibín" by Deborah Treisman, www.newyorker.com. February 24, 2013.

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• Actually, writers have no business writing about their own works. They either wax conceited, saying things like: 'My brilliance is possibly most apparent in my dazzling short story, "The Cookiepants Hypotenuse."' Or else they get unbearably cutesy: 'My cat Ootsywootums has given me all my best ideas, hasn't oo, squeezums?

  Connie Willis

  Writing, Cat, Conceited

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• For me, being a writer was never a choice. I was born one. All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. I wrote on everything. I didn't do my homework so I could write

  Laura Hillenbrand

  Writing, Choices, Childhood

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• I consider anybody a twerp who hasn't read the greatest American short story, which is 'Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' by Ambrose Bierce.

  Kurt Vonnegut

  Bridges, Owl, Stories

  Kurt Vonnegut (2011). “A Man Without a Country”, p.7, Seven Stories Press

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• Strange and mysterious things, though, aren't they - earthquakes? We take it for granted that the earth beneath our feet is solid and stationary. We even talk about people being 'down to earth' or having their feet firmly planted on the ground. But suddenly one day we see that it isn't true. The earth, the boulders, that are supposed to be solid, all of a sudden turn as mushy as liquid - From the short story "Thailand

  Haruki Murakami

  Mysterious Things, Earthquakes, Feet

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Jul 02, 2015

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• We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there's an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves. If it wasn't for our longing for these things, I doubt the novel or the short story would exist in its current form. I'm not going to say much more on the topic. Just remember: In dictatorships, only one person is really allowed to speak. And when I write a book or a story, I too am the only one speaking, no matter how I hide behind my characters.

  Junot Diaz

  Dream, Book, Writing

  "Questions for Junot Díaz". Interview with Meghan O'Rourke, www.slate.com. April 8, 2008.

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• If a writer writes poems and short stories and novels, but nobody ever reads them, is she really a writer?

  Jennifer Weiner

  Writing, Stories, Novel

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• I started a short story but it was so dreary that even my pen threw up.

  Jonathan Carroll

  Stories, Pens, Dreary

  Jonathan Carroll (2012). “Kissing the Beehive”, p.6, Open Road Media

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• Those around you can have their novellas, sweet, their short stories of cliché and coincidence, occasionally spiced up with tricks of the quirky, the achingly mundane, the grotesque. A few will even cook up Greek tragedy, those born into misery, destined to die in misery. But you, my bride of quietness, you will craft nothing less than epic with your life. Out of all of them, your story will be the one to last.

  Marisha Pessl

  Sweet, Epic, Greek

  Marisha Pessl (2006). “Special Topics in Calamity Physics”, p.84, Penguin

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• Suspense is very important. Even though this is humor and they're short stories, that theory of building suspense is still there.

  Sergio Aragones

  Suspense Novels, Important, Stories

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• Over the years I have forged intimate familial ties with these characters, who are reflections of a portion of myself. Consequently, even a character who appeared only once in a short story waits now in the wings, concealed by the curtain, for his next appearance on-stage. Not one of them has ever broken free of his familial ties with me and disappeared for ever - at least, not within the confines of my heart.

  Shusaku Endo

  Heart, Character, Reflection

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• The words you can't find, you borrow.
  We read to know we're not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.
  My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart.
  We are not quite novels.
  The analogy he is looking for is almost there.
  We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that.
  In the end, we are collected works.

  Gabrielle Zevin

  Book, Heart, Stories

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• My favorite short-story writer is John Cheever

  Irwin Shaw

  Story Writers, Stories, My Favorite

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• Yes?’ he asked, looking at me over the sheet. ‘I’m a writer temporarily down on my inspirations.’ ‘Oh, a writer, eh?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘No, I’m not.’ ‘What do you write?’ ‘Short stories mostly. And I’m halfway through a novel.’ ‘A novel, eh?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘What’s the name of it?’ ‘”The Leaky Faucet of My Doom.”‘ ‘Oh, I like that. What’s it about?’ ‘Everything.’ ‘Everything? You mean, for instance, it’s about cancer?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How about my wife?’ ‘She’s in there too.

  Charles Bukowski

  Cancer, Inspiration, Writing

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• But at the same time, I have trouble keeping things out of books, which is why I don't write short stories because they turn into novels.

  Jonathan Coe

  Book, Writing, Stories

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• 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

  Mean, Stories, Crafts

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• I am also working on a couple of short stories for anthologies. This is new to me and Im enjoying it.

  Judith Guest

  Couple, Stories, Anthology

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• If you do not have an alert and curious interest in character and dramatic situation, if you have no visual imagination and are unable to distinguish between honest emotional reactions and sentimental approaches to life, you will never write a competent short story.

  Edward Joseph Harrington O'Brien

  Writing, Character, Emotional

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• The makers of the short story have rarely been good novelists.

  V. S. Pritchett

  Writing, Novelists, Stories

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• 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

  Writing, Editors, Names

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• If you write a hundred short stories and they're all bad, that doesn't mean you've failed. You fail only if you stop writing.

  Ray Bradbury

  Writing, Mean, Stories

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• 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

  Song, Writing, Luxury

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• Zachary Jernigan's short stories are in deep conversation with the history of the genre while maintaining a thoroughly modern sensibility. Here’s a new writer who has found his voice. Listen to him and enjoy!

  James Patrick Kelly

  Voice, Stories, Maintaining

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• A short story is a writer's way of thinking through experience... Journalism aims at accuracy, but fiction's aim is truth. The writer distorts reality in the interest of a larger truth.

  John L'Heureux

  Reality, Thinking, Fiction

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• Most short stories have but one plot. The very best, however, have what I call a plot-and-a-half – that is, a main plot and a small subplot that feeds in a twist or an unexpected piece of business that ads crunch and flavor to the story as a whole.

  Elizabeth Sims

  Writing, Twists, Plot

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