“Nothing funny about happy people. I don't know, you just look at a situation or a life, and you can kind of pick up the areas of conflict and delve in there, because that's where the most story is. If someone's happily married for 20 years, that's great, but it's not that funny.” PeopleIfsKnowsYearsLooksKindStoriesSituationConflictMarriedPicksAreasHappy PeopleHappily Married Author:Kate Beaton
“I've had various experiences where I've been called by Hollywood studios to look at a script or comment on various scientific ideas that they're trying to inject into a story.” TryingLooksIdeasStoriesHollywoodScriptsVariousStudiosCommentHollywood Studios Author:Brian Greene
“And I loved the whole idea behind the story, which is that you're beautiful, so don't let other people tell you that you're not just because you don't look like the people in magazines. Or because you're not that weird ideal body image that's out there right now.” PeopleLooksIdeasWholeStoriesBodyBeautifulBehindsRight NowIdealsMagazinesBody ImageYou Re Beautiful Author:Mike Myers
“No story ever looks as bad as the story you've just bought; no story ever looks as good as the story the other fellow just bought.” LooksStoriesFellows Author:Irving Thalberg
“The world of counterterrorism is like that old jigsaw puzzle in the back of the closet: Its many missing pieces and extra parts jumbled in from other puzzles make it almost impossible to assemble. But in Ghost, Fred Burton manages to join together enough pieces to give us a discerning look at that world. This is a story, told in human terms, that will help make sense of the great puzzle of our times.” WorldGivingHumansLooksEnoughHelpingStoriesTogetherTermPiecesImpossibleMissingGhostManageMake SenseOur TimeExtrasClosetsPuzzlesDiscerningJigsawJigsaw PuzzlesMissing Piece Author:Eric L. Haney
“When I first encountered the poems of Jon Woodward, I was stunned into the state that is my life's joy-I was in the presence of the inimitable. Uncanny Valley extends that experience-almost into another dimension. These apocalyptic, pixilated poems forge a mythology of our ravaged culture, one that might have been written in the future. If you want poetry to give you a persimmon on a plate, look elsewhere; if you want to know what happens when seven trees fall on the highway and the story is told by a stutterer, this is the book, and it could only have been written by Woodward.” IfsKnowsWantGivingFirstsLooksHas BeensBookStatesStoriesMightHappensJoyFallCultureWrittenTreeSevenMythologyDimensionsValleysElsewherePlatesMight Have BeenHighwaysApocalypticStunnedUncanny Author:Mary Ruefle
“Any time I put together a story collection, I don't know what it's going to look like overall - or even what the title story is going to be. Over time, I end up with a dozen or so stories, and I start to see a shape to them, how they fit together, and then I write stories that complement or extend that shape.” KnowsWritingLooksEndsStoriesTogetherFitShapesTitlesCollectionsDozenComplement Author:Brian Evenson
“Nobody wants to see the truth. Everybody wants to have the fantasy. When I look back at the books I was reading in my childhood were selling some sort of fantasy as well. Most stories are not going to tell the deep suffering of every day. No book prepared me for the suffering I would experience in life because the word "suffering" does not even describe what the suffering is. No story is going to tell you that, and no words can tell you that.” WantWellsLooksDoeBookStoriesSufferingReadingFantasyChildhoodPreparedSelling Author:Signe Baumane
“I try not to think of myself as a woman filmmaker. I don't look for women influences. I have noticed in the past few years that there is a certain ceiling that a woman filmmaker can reach. I don't believe that it's sexism per se, but there are certain expectations in the industry about what films should be, how they should be made, what stories they should tell, and it's a habit, it's a tradition.” ThinkingShouldTryingBelieveLooksMadeStoriesFilmCertainInfluenceIndustryHabitExpectationsTraditionDon't BelieveFilmmakerSexismCeilings Author:Signe Baumane
“The Pixar people continuously amaze me. They come up with something that actually looks as though it takes place in this happy, real-world. Every plot line is not just plausible, but oddly authentic. The stories are full of adventure, humor and love. The characters are written with great human dimension. I don't know how they do it but they astound me.” PeopleKnowsWorldHumansLooksRealCharacterStoriesLinesKnow HowWrittenAdventureAnd LoveCome UpDimensionsPlotReal WorldPlausiblePixarPlot Lines Author:Tom Hanks
“In a sense my whole life as a writer is trying to find structural ways, or formal ways, to permit that outflowing so it doesn't just look like crazy output. In other words, if it turns out that you can do a given voice, that's just kind of inclination. But then if you can find a way to put that voice in a story so that the voice serves a purpose, then I would say that's being a writer.” IfsWayTryingLooksKindWholeStoriesPurposeTurnsGivenVoiceCan DoCrazyWhole LifePermitFormalInclinationOutput Author:George Saunders
“I haven't written a novel or something that long, because I really am improvising all along and the story is growing new limbs to do what it needs to do. So there's very little planning. There's a little planning where I say, "Well, it looks like I'm going in this direction, ok, good." But there's very little forethought or intellectual justification: "Oh, look, I'm putting in a theme park because that represents dystopian America!"” NeedsWellsLooksLittlesLongStoriesAmericaNovelGrowingWrittenHavensIntellectualPlanningParksThemeJustificationDystopianLimbsImprovisingForethoughtTheme Parks Author:George Saunders
“That's what a story must feel like to me. It's not, "I want to write about a gravedigger." But you're walking along and - boop! shovel. "Ok, what does one do with a shovel? Digs a hole. Why? I don't know yet. Dig the hole! Oh, look a body."” KnowsWantFeelsWritingLooksDoeStoriesBodyWalkingHolesShovelsGravediggers Author:George Saunders