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One Sentence Quotes

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One Sentence Quotes

“Even one word, or certainly one sentence, should be able to describe the basic characteristic that the scene has, or the character has, or the story has. And then you begin to detail that one spine, and you have offshoots from that spine, and it becomes more and more complex, but all of it stems from that one-word, one-line theme, which can give the character, the scene, or the play its uniqueness.”

GivingShouldPlayCharacterStoriesAbleLinesSceneComplexesDetailsSentencesCharacteristicsThemeUniquenessStemOne WordSpineOne LineOne Sentence
Author:William Shatner
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“Community is another such phenomenon. Like electricity, it is profoundly lawful. Yet there remains something about it that is inherently mysterious, miraculous, unfathomable. Thus there is no adequate one-sentence definition of genuine community. Community is something more than the sum of its parts, its individual members. What is this "something more?" Even to begin to answer that, we enter a realm that is not so much abstract as almost mystical. It is a realm where words are never fully suitable and language itself falls short.”

FallIndividualLanguageCommunityAnswersMembersRemainsDefinitionsSentencesGenuineMysteriousRealmsAbstractPhenomenonElectricityMysticalAdequateMiraculousSuitableUnfathomableOne Sentence
Book:The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace
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“almost all American writers tend to overwrite, to tell too much. I get the disillusioned feeling that novels, today, are sold by the pound, like groceries. It actually takes a great deal more discipline to be able to leave out rather than to throw in everything. This means that you have to say in one sentence precisely what you mean, instead of saying sort of what you kind of mean in hundreds of sentences and hoping the sum total will add up.”

KindMeanFeelingsTodayAbleDealsNovelToo MuchDisciplineAddSentencesPoundsGroceriesDisillusionedOne SentenceAmerican Writer
Author:Rona Jaffe
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“In one of the most brilliant papers in the English language Hume made it clear that what we speak of as 'causality' is nothing more than the phenomenon of repetition. When we mix sulphur with saltpeter and charcoal we always get gunpowder. This is true of every event subsumed by a causal law in other words, everything which can be called scientific knowledge. "It is custom which rules ," Hume said, and in that one sentence undermined both science and philosophy .”

MadeSaidPhilosophyLawSpeakLanguageClearEventsPaperSentencesBrilliantMade ItPhenomenonCustomsRepetitionPapersEnglish LanguageScientific KnowledgeCausalityOne SentenceGunpowderCharcoalHumeScience And Philosophy
Author:Philip K. Dick
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“It's hard to put into words the impact of the perfect lyric, melody or contagious beat that moves you in an unexpected way. Authors, composers and artists have tried - and here we've rounded up our favorite quotes that help to begin forming structure around such an unspoken universal force. Which are most meaningful to you? If you had to sum up the power of music and sound in one sentence, what would you say?"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence."”

IfsWayHardHelpingMovingArtistForceSoundPerfectSilenceMusicianBeatsUniversalImpactStructurePaintSentencesMeaningfulPainterUnexpectedMelodyComposerCanvasContagiousUnspokenPower Of MusicOne SentenceMost Meaningful
Author:Leopold Stokowski
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“All your clear and pleasing sentences will fall apart if you don't keep remembering that writing is linear and sequential, that logic is the glue that holds it together, that tension must be maintained from one sentence to the next and from one paragraph to the next and from one section to the next, and that narrative - good old-fashioned storytelling - is what should pull your readers along without their noticing the tug.”

IfsShouldWritingTogetherRememberFallNextClearReaderLogicSentencesStorytellingNarrativeTensionSectionsOld FashionedFalling ApartNoticingParagraphLinearGlueOne Sentence
Author:William Zinsser
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“If one sentence were to sum up the mechanism driving the Great Stagnation, it is this: Recent and current innovation is more geared to private goods than to public goods. That simple observation ties together the three major macroeconomic events of our time: growing income inequality, stagnant median income, and the financial crisis.”

IfsTogetherThreeSimpleGrowingEventsMajorsInnovationCrisisFinancialCurrentsSentencesDrivingIncomeObservationInequalityTiesOur TimeGoodsMechanismStagnationStagnantFinancial CrisisIncome InequalityOne SentenceMacroeconomicsMedian
Author:Tyler Cowen
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“On the air, it's as if somebody draws a heavy drape to block any bias. I don't even feel it inside. It's the same curtain that keeps you from swearing. I've known broadcasters who can't get one sentence out in normal conversation without being profane, and yet, they can go on the air and talk for three hours and never slip once.”

IfsFeelsThreeHoursKnownAirGoes OnConversationNormalDrawsHeavySentencesBlockSlipsBiasCurtainsSwearingProfaneOne SentenceBroadcastersDrapes
Author:Dick Enberg
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“The resistance to my work, and to my way of writing, has been there from the beginning. The first things I wrote were these short short stories collected in At the Bottom of the River, and at least three of them are one sentence long. They were printed in The New Yorker, over the objections of many of the editors in the fiction department.”

WayWritingFirstsLongHas BeensStoriesThreeFictionRiversBottomSentencesResistanceMy WayDepartmentEditorsShort StoryPrintedNew YorkersObjectionsOne Sentence
Author:Jamaica Kincaid
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“A lot of the letters that are coming in - a lot of them are queries or comments - are one sentence long... These are from Twitter. And if you look at the nature of those one sentence letters, most of the time it's something that came to somebody's mind - somebody walking down the street had a thought and sent it out. If they thought about it for two minutes they would not have sent it.”

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Author:Noam Chomsky
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“Actually learning ancient Greek was a brilliant practice of mine because you'd sit there and you'd read a sentence and sometimes it would take you a day, an entire day to figure out one sentence. But it really trains you to be analytical, to think in a certain way to try and interpret what something means. So I've been thinking like that my whole life and then I love Machiavelli and I love thinking about politics that way. So it's sort of all that put together and then the good luck to meet a man who is sort of interested in the same thing.”

ThinkingMenWayTryingMeanSometimesWholeTogetherCertainPracticeFiguresMinesLuckTrainAncientSentencesBrilliantWhole LifeGreekGood LuckAncient GreekOne Sentence
Author:Robert Greene
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“The words, "I have a dog named Winn-Dixie," popped into my head in the voice of a small girl with a southern accent. I'd been writing long enough at that point to know not to ignore that kind of red flag. The next day, I put aside what I'd been working on, started with that one sentence, and followed it all the way to the end.”

KnowsWayWritingKindLongEndsEnoughGirlNextVoiceDogRedSentencesSouthernFlagsAccentsNext DayOne SentenceRed FlagsDixieSouthern AccentSmall Girl
Author:Kate DiCamillo
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“When you have a full page of well-written dialogue that has a thought process to it, it is pretty easy to memorize. It's a lot easier to memorize than if you're in a scene and other people are talking, and you have maybe one word or one sentence that you have to interject at the right time and in a natural way.”

PeopleIfsWayWellsEasyProcessNaturalTalkingWrittenEasierScenePagesSentencesDialogueRight TimeOne WordWell WrittenThought ProcessOne Sentence
Author:Sandra Bullock
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“I always do casting for every role, even if it's just one sentence. I like to work with theater actors because they're used to a process. I think filmmaking sometimes can become so stiff. Sometimes I have the feeling that people come together praying in the morning that, "Let's just shoot something, no matter what! Let's just finish this day, no matter what we will tape!"”

PeopleThinkingSometimesFeelingsTogetherMorningPrayingThis DayFilmmakingOne Sentence
Author:Maren Ade
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“We were lucky if we got two takes out of a scene in the Rock 'N' Roll High School. But the Ramones did get a lot of material cut out. I think Marky Ramone calls Mr. McGree "Mr. McGlube." But that was sort of endearing and charming, and made you just love the Ramones even more. Sometimes those flubs work in favor of the filmmakers. They just couldn't get out more than one sentence in a row. It was just kind of weird. I think they were just nervous.”

ThinkingKindSometimesSchoolCuttingSceneLuckyHigh SchoolNervousFilmmakerCharmingOne SentenceEndearingRamones
Author:P. J. Soles
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“I write lyrics really fast. When it's time to write, I usually put them off until the very end and then when it's time to write I can just sit down: I sing the melody, whatever the melody is, because that's the first thing that's already been there for a long time; I start singing it and I start creating consonants and vowels; then they turn into words; then all of the sudden one sentence will happen; then that sentence will dictate how the rest of the sentences happen.”

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Author:Luke Temple
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