Plot Quotes - Page 4

• There is no vengeance as terrible as the vengeance a coward plots in the dark of his heart.

  Glen Cook

  Heart, Dark, Coward

  Glen Cook (2007). “Chronicles of the Black Company”, p.331, Macmillan

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• Dialogue is character and character is plot.

  George V

  Character, Dialogue

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• The guilty is he who meditates a crime; the punishment is his who lays the plot.

  Vittorio Alfieri

  Punishment, Prison, Guilty

  "Antigone". Play by Vittorio Alfieri, Act 2, Scene 2, 1801.

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• I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.

  Alexander McCall Smith

  Book, Focus, Lines

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• Creating the characters is the most creative part of the novel except for the language itself. There I am, sitting in front of my computer in right-brain mode, typing the things that come to mind - which become the seeds of plot. It's scary, though, because I always wonder: Is it going to be there this time?

  Elizabeth George

  Character, Creating, Creative

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• A plot begins when somebody has something to hide.

  John Banville

  Writing

  "'A Death In Summer' Starts With A Mysterious Suicide". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. July 2, 2011.

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• The only way I could finish a book and get a plot was just to keep making it longer until something happens.

  Nelson Algren

  Book, Way, Happens

  Nelson Algren (2011). “Entrapment and Other Writings”, p.90, Seven Stories Press

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• There is only one plot-things are not what they seem.

  Jim Thompson

  Writing, Things Are Not What They Seem, Seems

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• My writing has always been what you call 'narrative fiction' in the sense that it's got very strong plots and twists at the end.

  Anthony Horowitz

  Strong, Writing, Twists

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• Ugh! How many stories about love, copulation, marriage and death already exist, not one of which tells the truth! How sick I am of well-constructed plots and brilliant writing!

  Sadegh Hedayat

  Writing, Sick, Stories

  Sadegh Hedayat (2010). “The Blind Owl”, p.33, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The name of the author is the first to go followed obediently by the title, the plot, the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of, as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain, to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

  Billy Collins

  Memories, Phones, Fishing

  2000 Taking off Emily Dickinson's Clothes: Selected Poems, 'Forgetfulness'.

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• Sometimes my plot lines are so convoluted, I get calls from friends at 3 am saying; you SOB, you'll never pull this one off.

  Clive Cussler

  Writing, Plot Lines, Sometimes

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• A plot is two dogs and one bone.

  Robert Newton Peck

  Dog, Two, Bones

  Robert Newton Peck (1988). “Secrets of successful fiction”, Accord Communications Ltd

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• Sometimes you can have a great scene but it just doesn't need to be in the movie. If it's not progressing the plot, not progressing the story, not adding to the momentum, or if it's not purposefully serving a breath - it has got to go.

  Kevin Feige

  Progress, Needs, Momentum

  "Exclusive: Marvel’s Kevin Feige Talks THOR, AVENGERS, ANT-MAN, DOCTOR STRANGE, Animated Movies, Reveals What’s in Odin’s Vault". Interview with Steve 'Frosty' Weintraub, collider.com. May 1, 2011.

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• plot is character in action.

  Maren Elwood

  Character, Action

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• I believe in plot, in development of character, in the effect of the passage of time, in a good story - better than something you might find in the newspaper. And I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.

  John Irving

  Believe, Character, Stories

  Interview with Suzanne Herel, www.motherjones.com. May/June 1997.

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• Television is a constant stream of fact, opinions, lies, moral dilemmas, plots: an infinitely complex and sophisticated torrent of information. How could it not make you cleverer? The only people who ever thought television rotted the brain and made kids dumb were those with a vested interest in other ways of learning, or those who were intellectually insecure, usually about books.

  A. A. Gill

  Lying, Book, Kids

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• I think of a plot, I think of an idea, and then I wonder, How can I get that onto the stage? . . . Whatever devices you use should always be there to serve the theme. If the theme has been overtaken by the device, then something's wrong.

  Alan Ayckbourn

  Thinking, Ideas, Use

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• I begin by assembling notes on characters. Large swaths of the plot become clear to me as I do this.

  James Ellroy

  Character, Notes, Clear

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• My favorite films are the ones that I walk away from and I know I saw a story. I saw the core part of the plot. But if I ever take another look at it then I can see that there was some more stuff going on in there that I didn't realize.

  Shane Carruth

  Looks, Stories, Stuff

  Source: www.indiewire.com

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• Events, time, forms, all propel the inner plot within each of us.

  Vanna Bonta

  Time, Events, Form

  "Vanna Bonta Talks About Quantum fiction: Author Interview". Interview with Laurel van der Linde, 2007.

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• Character, I think, is the single most important thing in fiction. You might read a book once for its interesting plot—but not twice.

  Diana Gabaldon

  Book, Character, Thinking

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• That is what I define as a novel: something that has a beginning, a middle and an end, with characters and a plot that sustain interest from the first sentence to the last. But that is not what I do at all.

  Guillermo Cabrera Infante

  Writing, Character, Lasts

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• Plot, or evolution, is life responding to environment; and not only is this response always in terms of conflict, but the really great struggle, the epic struggle of creation, is the inner fight of the individual whereby the soul builds up character.

  William Wallace Cook

  Struggle, Writing, Character

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• In every well-written play the battle rages between the primary powers of Good and Evil, and it is this battle which constitutes the life impulse of the play, its driving force, and is basic to all plot structures...In any true piece of art...the beginning and the end are, or should be, polar in principle. All the main qualities of the first section should transform themselves into their opposites in the last section.

  Michael Chekhov

  Art, Opposites, Play

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