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Attention Quotes

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Attention Quotes

“You have to seduce the reader, manipulate their mind and heart, listen to the music of language. I sometimes think of prose as music, in terms of its rhythms and dynamics, the way you compress and expand the attention of a reader over a sentence, the way the tempo pushes you towards an image or sensation. We want an intense experience, so that we can forget ourselves when we enter the world of the book. When you are reading, the physical object of the book should disappear from your hands.”

“The definition of good prose is proper words in their proper places; of good verse, the most proper words in their proper places.The propriety is in either case relative. The words in prose ought to express the intended meaning, and no more; if they attract attention to themselves, it is, in general, a fault.”

Ifs Poetry Attention Cases Poet Ought Faults Definitions Prose Relative Verses Propriety

Book:Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge: In Two Volumes

Source: Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge: In Two Volumes

“I grow very impatient with prose writers who don't pay attention to the cadence of the sentence. If you start as a poet, you're wooed by the music of language; you want to put that into your practice.”

Ifs Want Language Grows Pay Attention Practice Poet Sentences Pay Attention Prose Impatient Cadence

Author:Alison Hawthorne Deming

“The beauty of prose fiction that I see is simply that in order to create something you need only pay attention to personal exigency.”

Needs Order Pay Attention Fiction Pay Attention Prose

Author:James Kelman

“The stories I respect most aren't those with the rich, dense prose, but those which achieve a rich, deep effect with simple little nothing-sentences, lines I won't possibly remember, because they simply functioned, didn't draw attention to themselves, were properly humble.”

Littles Stories Remember Lines Simple Attention Rich Achieve Effects Draws Humble Sentences Prose Dense

Author:Stephen Graham Jones

“Sentences are not different enough to hold the attention unless they are dramatic. No ingenuity of varying structure will do. All that can save them is the speaking tone of voice somehow entangled in the words and fastened to the page for the ear of the imagination. That is all that can save poetry from sing-song, all that can save prose from itself.”

Different Enough Song Voice Imagination Attention Pages Ears Structure Sentences Dramatic Tone Prose Ingenuity

Book:The Collected Prose of Robert Frost

Source: The Collected Prose of Robert Frost

“George Moore unexpectedly pinched my behind. I felt rather honored that my behind should have drawn the attention of the great master of English prose.”

Should Felt Behinds Attention Masters Should Have Prose Honored

Book:Past imperfect

Source: Past imperfect