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Plot Quotes

Browse 1030 quotes about Plot.

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Plot Quotes

“This element of surprise or mystery — the detective element as it is sometimes rather emptily called — is of great importance in a plot. It occurs through a suspension of the time-sequence; a mystery is a pocket in time, and it occurs crudely, as in "Why did the queen die?" and more subtly in half-explained gestures and words, the true meaning of which only dawns pages ahead. Mystery is essential to a plot, and cannot be appreciated without intelligence.”

MindSometimesDiesLeftBehindsHalfMysteryEssentialsElementsPagesAppreciateImportanceSurpriseCraftsDawnQueensPocketsPlotGesturesAppreciatedLeft BehindSequenceDetectivesBroodingSuspensionTrue MeaningElement Of SurpriseMarching On
Author:E. M. Forster
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“What must novel dialogue . . . really be and do? It must be pointed, intentional, relevant. It must crystallize situation. It must express character. It must advance plot. During dialogue, the characters confront one another. The confrontation is in itself an occasion. Each one of these occasions, throughout the novel, is unique.”

WritingCharacterSituationNovelUniqueDialogueOccasionsPlotRelevantConfrontation
Book:Collected Impressions
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“We're trained to see only male or female and to plot people into those categories when they actually don't fit neatly at all. But if we pause, watch and listen closely we'll see the multiplicity of ways in which people are sexed and gendered. There exists a range of personal identifications around woman, man, in-between-we don't even have names or pronouns that reflect that in between place but people certainly live in it.”

PeopleIfsMenWayNamesWatchesFitFemaleMalesSexualityRangePlotCategoriesPausesIdentificationMultiplicityPronouns
Author:Minnie Bruce Pratt
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“Next Monday the Convention in Virginia will assemble; we have still good hopes of its adoption here: though by no great plurality of votes. South Carolina has probably decided favourably before this time. The plot thickens fast. A few short weeks will determine the political fate of America for the present generation, and probably produce no small influence on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come.”

LongStillsAgeAmericaPoliticalNextFateGenerationsWeekInfluenceProduceDecidedVoteConstitutionSouthDeterminePlotConventionsAdoptionMondaySuccessionVirginiaCarolinaSouth Carolina
Author:George Washington
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“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining super capitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control.... Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.”

WorldMeanGovernmentOrderEvilGenerationsCapitalismHistoricalInternationalConvincedPlanningCommunismPlotAlliesNew WorldConspiracyElitesScopeBankersNew World OrderWorld OrderTentsCombiningConspiracy TheoryWorld GovernmentOld WorldNwoOne World GovernmentNew GovernmentCabalDepopulationAgenda 21Controlling GovernmentCapitalism And Communism
Author:Larry McDonald
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“The deep-read is when you get gut-hooked and dragged overboard down and down through the maze of print and find, to your amazement, you can breathe down there after all and there’s a whole other world. I’m talking about the kind of reading when you realize that books are indeed interactive. . . . I’m talking about the kind of deep-read where it isn’t just the plot or the characters that matter, but the words and the way they fit together and the meandering evanescent thoughts you think between the lines: the kind of reading where you are fleetingly aware of your own mind at work.”

ThinkingWorldWayMindKindBookMatterWholeCharacterTogetherReadingRealizingLinesTalkingFitDown AndBreatheGutsPlotPrintWhere You AreOther WorldsHookedAmazementMazesInteractiveOverboardBetween The Lines
Author:Tim Wynne-Jones
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“I wouldn't care to speculate about what it is in Westlake's psyche that makes him so good at writing about Parker, much less what it is that makes me like the Parker novels so much. Suffice it to say that Stark/Westlake is the cleanest of all noir novelists, a styleless stylist who gets to the point with stupendous economy, hustling you down the path of plot so briskly that you have to read his books a second time to appreciate the elegance and sober wit with which they are written.”

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Author:Terry Teachout
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“Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be dynamic.”

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Author:Ray Bradbury
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“Democrats had a secret meeting in Reid's office on Halloween night at 6:15 and they hatched this plot. They said the only way they could get this investigation going was to do it in secret. They say they've been frustrated for a year and a half in getting this investigation into whether the administration twisted the intelligence and they're making no apologies whatsoever for it.”

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Author:George Stephanopoulos
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“I wonder if Communists occupied in producing plays are not safer than Communists starving to death. I have always felt that whatever your beliefs might be, if you could earn enough to keep body and soul together and had to be pretty busy doing that, you would not be very apt to have time to plot the overthrow of any existing government.”

IfsSoulEnoughPlayBodyGovernmentMightTogetherPoliticalPoliticsBeliefFeltWonderBusyPlotCommunistStarving
Book:My Day: The Best of Eleanor Roosevelt's Acclaimed Newspaper Columns, 1936-1962
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