Quotessence
Home / Authors / Lorin Stein
Lorin Stein

Lorin Stein Quotes

Editor

Filter quotes by topic

AllThinkingStoriesPeopleIfsKindShort StoryFictionKnowsMagazinesWay

Famous Lorin Stein Quotes

“I regret that there aren't more short stories in other magazines. But in a certain way, I think the disappearance of the short-story template from everyone's head can be freeing. Partly because there's no mass market for stories, the form is up for grabs. It can be many, many things. So the anthology is very much intended for students, but I think we're all in the position of writing students now. Very few people are going around with a day-to-day engagement with the short story.”

PeopleThinkingWayWritingStoriesFormCertainPositionStudentsRegretMassMagazinesShort StoryEngagementDay To DayI RegretAnthologyDisappearance
Author:Lorin Stein
Create image

“There are two basic defenses for an open ending: one is, If you read carefully enough, you'll know what happened. And the other is, That's how life is: things don't come to neat endings, there isn't a "happily ever after." But if you take that second line of defense, then I think you have to make the point that the writer has shown the range of possibility.”

IfsThinkingKnowsTwoEnoughLife IsLinesHappenedPossibilityDefenseRangeNeatHappily Ever AfterEver After
Author:Lorin Stein
Create image

“When I was a book editor, I got used to being told that my tastes were dark or edgy. These are not words that would've occurred to me, but I was told that enough that I have to believe it's true - that I like things that some other people find off-putting or upsetting. My job is to publish stuff that I really, really care about. That might mean that it doesn't sit well with everybody.”

PeopleBelieveWellsMeanBookEnoughMightCareJobsUsedStuffDarkTasteUpsetEditorsPublishEdgy
Author:Lorin Stein
Create image

“I hadn't thought about the balance in mood. You see that we did it in alphabetical order, so if there's any kind of shape, or any kind of flow, it's random. Gender...we didn't think much about it. It was sort of interesting to see that women often were choosing women and men often were choosing men. And sometimes they wouldn't and that was fun. I didn't know that I would be excited by that, until I saw it happen.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMenKindSometimesHappensWould BeOrderFunInterestingSawsBalanceShapesMen And WomenFlowExcitedGenderMoodAlphabetical Order
Author:Lorin Stein
Create image

“A lot of people who want to see the short story have a renaissance of readership - they tend to think of short stories, and sometimes poems too, as being well-suited to the way we now live, with all of these broken-up bits of time. I hope they're right, but my sense is that our fiction reading has become, if anything, more cherished as a kind of escape from fragmentation.”

PeopleIfsThinkingWayWantWellsKindSometimesStoriesReadingBitsFictionBrokenShort StoryRenaissanceBroken UpReadershipFragmentation
Author:Lorin Stein
Create image

“Chekhov's stories are about the moment that a life goes off the rails and the price that will be paid - forever. That's a typical Chekhov story for you. Something that you're used to lying in bed worrying about at four in the morning, before you have the psychic defenses to kid yourself and tell yourself to get up and shower and go to the office.”

MomentsStoriesKidsUsedLyingMorningWorryForeverFourBedOfficePaidDefenseGet UpShowersTypicalPsychicsRailChekhov
Author:Lorin Stein
Create image

“Pretty much every issue that we've put out, there have been at least one or two things that really surprised me. It sounds like bullshit, but most of the stories that we've run had that effect on me. We get thousands and thousands of submissions and I don't think we've published a story yet - very few, anyway - where there wasn't something like what Mona Simpson described, where a first sentence or a first page didn't just really command attention.”

ThinkingFirstsHas BeensTwoStoriesRunningSoundAttentionIssuesEffectsPagesSentencesCommandTwo ThingsBullshitSubmission
Author:Lorin Stein
Create image

“It used to be that you would go into a writing program and what you would learn was how to write a short story. You would pick up the magazines and you would be taught from the magazines how to write a short story. Nowadays student writers are learning to write novels because that market is gone, so the ones who are drawn to the form are doing it really for reasons of their own and that's really exciting.”

WritingReasonNovelStudentsProgramExcitingShort Story
Author:Lorin Stein
Create image

“Our generation grew up with the Review as a fact of life. It was America’s literary magazine. To our minds, it still is. It has launched our favorite writers. It has made a special claim for the quarterly as such, being both timely and lasting, free of the news of the day or the pressure to please a crowd. Most of all, the Review has shown, repeatedly, that works of imagination can be as stylish and urgent as the flashiest feature reporting, and can do more to refocus our picture of the world.”

WorldMindMadeStillsFactsAmericaCan DoImaginationGenerationsSpecialGrewPleaseGrew UpNewsClaimsPressureCrowdsMagazinesFeaturesLastingReviewsUrgentFacts Of LifeOur GenerationTimelyStylishRefocus
Author:Lorin Stein
Create image

“If I could change the attitude of young men toward literature, I would want them to read not just for escape, but because literature can be more truthful about things like sex, commitment, and aging. It can be more truthful about the stuff that our parents lied to us (and themselves) about, and the stuff that everyone has to lie about. It can all be dealt with truthfully in fiction and poetry.”

IfsMenWantYoungLyingLiteratureSexStuffParentAttitudeFictionCommitmentAgingYoung ManIf I CouldTruthfulLied
Author:Lorin Stein
Create image