Suspense Quotes

• We all live in suspense, from day to day, from hour to hour; in other words, we are the hero of our own story.

  Mary McCarthy

  Life, Hero, Positive Attitude

  "Characters in Fiction". Partisan Review, March/April 1961.

  77 Copy quote

  Show source

• Suspense combines curiosity with fear and pulls them up a rising slope.

  Mason Cooley

  Rose, Curiosity, Rising

  7 Copy quote

• Suspense is achieved by information control: What you know. What the reader knows. What the characters know.

  Tom Clancy

  Character, Writing, Information

  4 Copy quote

• This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Sarcastic, Suspense Novels

  Oscar Wilde, Alyssa Harad (2005). “The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays”, p.97, Simon and Schuster

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• Suspense is one of the ways you persuade a reader to become engaged and stay engaged with your work.

  Marge Piercy

  Way, Reader, Engaged

  Interview with Charlotte Templin, margepiercy.com. May 2004.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life is like a novel. It's filled with suspense. You have no idea what is going to happen until you turn the page.

  Sidney Sheldon

  Life And Love, Ideas, Suspense Novels

  Sidney Sheldon (2005). “The other side of me”

  46 Copy quote

  Show source

• The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.

  Daniel J. Boorstin

  Life, Cute, Courage

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

  42 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even cowards can endure hardship; only the brave can endure suspense.

  Mignon McLaughlin

  Courage, Women, Brave

  Mignon McLaughlin (2014). “Aperçus: The Aphorisms of Mignon McLaughlin”, p.47, BookBaby

  34 Copy quote

  Show source

• Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Imagination, Excitement, Left

  56 Copy quote

• Mystery is an intellectual process... But suspense is essentially an emotional process.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Emotional, Intellectual, Mystery

  80 Copy quote

• Suspense is torture ... but delightful--or there'd be no gambling in the world.

  Ada Leverson

  Gambling, World, Torture

  Ada Leverson (1907). “The Twelfth Hour”

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Be the hero of your own story.

  Joe Rogan

  Hero, Suspense Novels, Stories

  35 Copy quote

• When the reader and one narrator know something the other narrator does not, the opportunities for suspense and plot development and the shifting of reader sympathies get really interesting.

  Sara Zarr

  Opportunity, Interesting, Development

  "Teen book club: Cat Clarke interviews Sara Zarr". Interview with Cat Clarke, www.theguardian.com. October 19, 2012.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no suspense in inevitability.

  Damon Lindelof

  Inevitability

  "So Is 'Prometheus' Just A Rewrite of Jon Spaihts 'Alien' Script Made Like A Less Direct Prequel?" by Edward Davis, www.indiewire.com. June 28, 2011.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think one of the appeals of suspense is to safely explore our innermost fears.

  Lisa Gardner

  Thinking, Appeals

  9 Copy quote

• Suspense is worse than disappointment.

  Robert Burns

  Disappointment, Anxiety

  Robert Burns (1834). “The works with his lift by Allan Cunningham”, p.177

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The suspense in a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist himself, who is intensely curious too about what will happen to the hero.

  Mary McCarthy

  Hero, Suspense Novels, Novelists

  "On the Contrary".

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is a miserable thing to live in suspense; it is the life of the spider.

  Jonathan Swift

  Spiders, Miserable

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Sheridan (1812). “The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift...”, p.169

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• For me, suspense doesn't have any value if it's not balanced by humor.

  Alfred Hitchcock

  Balanced, Ifs, Values

  Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Gottlieb (1997). “Hitchcock on Hitchcock: Selected Writings and Interviews”, p.144, Univ of California Press

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words.

  Ken Follett

  Destiny, Anxiety, Care

  14 Copy quote

• The audience wants to be attracted not by the critics, but by a great story. You must deliver to the audience emotion - and when I say emotion, I mean suspense, drama, love.

  Dino De Laurentiis

  Drama, Mean, Stories

  10 Copy quote

• I do try not to spend much time reading in the suspense genre.

  Thomas Perry

  Book, Reading, Trying

  Interview with Ann Bruns, www.bookreporter.com. January 17, 2003.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• The suspense is terrible. I hope it'll last.

  Gene Wilder

  Funny, Lasts, Terrible

  336 Copy quote

• 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

  10 Copy quote

• That's the magic of filmmaking, to draw the audience into an exotic world and keep them there and keep the suspense.

  Michelle Yeoh

  Magic, Exotic, World

  Source: www.dotwnews.com

  8 Copy quote

  Show source