Plot Quotes - Page 38

• My youngest brother had a wonderful schtick from some time in high school, through to graduating medicine. He had a card in his wallet that read, ‘If I am found with amnesia, please give me the following books to read …’ And it listed half a dozen books where he longed to recapture that first glorious sense of needing to find out ‘what happens next’ … the feeling that keeps you up half the night. The feeling that comes before the plot’s been learned.

  Guy Gavriel Kay

  Brother, Book, School

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• Oh, how great is the power of truth! which of its own power can easily defend itself against all the ingenuity and cunning and wisdom of men, and against the treacherous plots of all the world.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Truth, Men, World

  Marcus Tullius Cicero (2014). “Delphi Complete Works of Cicero (Illustrated)”, p.1050, Delphi Classics

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• Just as a gardener must tend his or her plot, keeping out the weeds, you must tend the garden of your mind, weeding out the thoughts of lack, limitation, and negativity. You must nurture and tend the thoughts of happiness, success, and purpose.

  Randy Gage

  Weed, Garden, Negativity

  Randy Gage (2003). “Prosperity Mind: How to Harness the Power of Thought”, p.25, Internet Profit Kit

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• Through rationality we shall become awesome, and invent and test systematic methods for making people awesome, and plot to optimize everything in sight, and the more fun we have the more people will want to join us.

  Eliezer Yudkowsky

  Fun, Sight, People

  "Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians". www.lesswrong.com. April 21, 2011.

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• Many of my favorite films, if someone were to tell me simply what they're about, I probably wouldn't be that interested. Plot often has so little to do with what's at the heart of a film.

  Shane Carruth

  Heart, Littles, Film

  "Shane Carruth on swimming upriver (and self-distributing) in ‘Upstream Color’". Interview with Guy Lodge, uproxx.com. April 16, 2013.

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• I think that sometimes, romantic comedies have to be really broad, and that the plot of people falling in and out of love or whatever is not enough. Enough Said had that stuff, but I wanted it to be fun and funny while also grounded in reality.

  Nicole Holofcener

  Fun, Fall, Thinking

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• When the plot flags, bring in a man with a gun.

  Raymond Chandler

  Gun, Men, Flags

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• There are those who maintain that in this world women have no right to interfere in the affairs of state, in politics, in plots and counter-plots. Others that are who, more chivalrous, are willing to admit that women have as much right to act, think, and speak as men.

  Belle Boyd

  Men, Thinking, World

  Belle Boyd (1865). “Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison”, p.461

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• And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.

  George R. R. Martin

  Sex, Philosophy, Reading

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• A country is strong which consists of wealthy families, every member of whom is interested in defending a common treasure; it is weak when composed of scattered individuals, to whom it matters little whether they obey seven or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as each keeps his own plot of land, blind in their wretched egotism, to the fact that the day is coming when this too will be torn from them.

  Honore de Balzac

  Family, Country, Strong

  Honore de Balzac (2011). “Letters of Two Brides”, p.76, The Floating Press

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• yet it seems
  Life scarce can cast a fragrance on the wind,
  Scarce spread a glory to the morning beams,
  But the torn petals strew the garden plot;
  And there's but common greenness after that.

  William Butler Yeats

  Life, Morning, Garden

  William Butler Yeats (1997). “The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition”, p.207, Simon and Schuster

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• The westward march has stopped, upon the final plains of the Pacific; and now the plot thickenswith the change, the pause, the settlement, our people draw into closer groups, stand face to face, to know each other and be known.

  Woodrow Wilson

  People, Faces, Groups

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• The plots of God are perfect. The Universe is a plot of God.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Perfect, Universe

  Edgar Allan Poe (2016). “Complete Works Of Edgar Allan Poe: The New Raven Edition”, p.3066, ShandonPress

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• Nothing aids which may not also injure us.
  Fire serves us well, but he who plots to burn
  His neighbor's roof arms his hands with fire.

  Ovid

  Fire, Hands, May

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• Good manners, Madam, are had these days not
  For your asking, nor mine, nor what-we-used-to-be's.
  The day is a loud grenade that bursts a smile
  Of serious weeds in a comic lily plot.

  Allen Tate

  Weed, Good Man, Asking

  Allen Tate (2014). “Collected Poems, 1919-1976”, p.204, Macmillan

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• In writing, I'm totally anti-plans of any kind. All my attempts to plan and plot novels have come to grief, and in expensive ways.

  Peter Temple

  Grief, Writing, Way

  "The Book Show" with Ramona Koval, www.abc.net.au. June 18, 2006.

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• In everything I've written, the crime has always just been an occasion to write about other things. I don't have a picture of myself as writing crime novels. I like fairly strong narratives, but it's a way of getting a plot moving.

  Peter Temple

  Strong, Moving, Writing

  "The Book Show" with Ramona Koval, www.abc.net.au. June 18, 2006.

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• I start with a beat sheet, which is more of an abbreviated outline. It hits all the major plot points. From there, I move to note cards. But the most important part of my process is my inspiration board.

  Kami Garcia

  Moving, Inspiration, Important

  "Interview: Kami Garcia, 'Unbreakable'". Interview with Jessie Potts, happyeverafter.usatoday.com. October 1, 2013.

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• I keep an elaborate calendar for my characters detailing on which dates everything happens. Im constantly revising this as I go along. It gives me the freedom to intricately plot my story, knowing it will at least hold up on a timeline.

  Maria Semple

  Character, Knowing, Giving

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• The Cloud Roads has wildly original worldbuilding, diverse and engaging characters, and a thrilling adventure plot. It's that rarest of fantasies: fresh and surprising, with a story that doesn't go where ten thousand others have gone before. I can't wait for my next chance to visit the Three Worlds!

  N.K. Jemisin

  Adventure, Character, Clouds

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• I've never really found inspiration for story ideas in the news, but I'd say it certainly affects our lives in so many ways. I would say that certainly the stories of the day appear in the work - I just have never gone so far as to say, well, this particular event could influence a plot of an entire book.

  Michael Koryta

  Book, Inspiration, Ideas

  "Michael Connelly on the Book He Had To Stop Writing". Interview with Nathan Rostron, www.bookish.com. February 4, 2013.

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• I was born inside the movie of my life. The visuals were before me, the audio surrounded me, the plot unfolded inevitably but not necessarily. I don't remember how I got into the movie, but it continues to entertain me.

  Roger Ebert

  Audio, Remember, Born

  Roger Ebert (2011). “Life Itself: A Memoir”, p.4, Hachette UK

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• Bangkok 8 is one of the most startling and provocative mysteries that I've read in years. The characters are marvelously unique, the setting is intoxicating and the plot unwinds in dark illusory strands, reminiscent of Gorky Park. Once I started, I didn't want to put it down.

  Carl Hiaasen

  Character, Dark, Unique

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• Delicious... Everything I'd hoped for in a new Wild Cards book. The character interactions and plot twists have exactly the complexity, surprise, and unsentimental realism I'd expect out of a George R. R. Martin project.

  Austin Grossman

  Book, Character, Twists

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• Culture is a plot against the expansion of consciousness.

  Terence McKenna

  Expansion, Culture, Consciousness

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