The shorter and the plainer the better. — Beatrix Potter
A short story relies on those values that make poetry and jazz what they are: tension, rhythms, inner beat, into unforeseen within foreseen parameters — Julio Cortazar
A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film. — Lorrie Moore
The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side. — Emma Donoghue
Writing a poem is like having an affair, a one-night stand; a short story is a romance, a relationship; a novel is a marriage-one has to be cunning, devise compromises, and make sacrifices. — Amos Oz
Short Writing Short Quotes
but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short. — Jane Austen
Writing is easy. Just sit in front of a typewriter, open up a vein and bleed it out drop by drop. — Red Smith
Top 10 Writing Short Quotes
It wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. The laws of prose writing are as immutable as those of flight, of mathematics, of physics. — Ernest Hemingway
it wasn't by accident that the Gettysburg address was so short. — Ernest Hemingway
Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better. — V. S. Pritchett
Always carry a notebook. And I mean always. The short-term memory only retains information for three minutes; unless it is committed to paper you can lose an idea for ever. — Will Self
I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil. — Flannery O'Connor
I'll give you the whole secret to short story writing. Here it is. Rule 1: Write stories that please yourself. There is no Rule 2. — O. Henry
Blade Runner was the godfather of all these fantastic movies that occur today. What's frustrating is that we're short of really great writing and great ideas. Blade Runner was full of them. — Ridley Scott
Goon Squad' took about three years to write and that's the short end. My second novel, 'Look at Me,' took six years. — Jennifer Egan
For me, being a writer was never a choice. I was born one. All through my childhood I wrote short stories and stuffed them in drawers. I wrote on everything. I didn't do my homework so I could write — Laura Hillenbrand
Writing Short Image Quotes
There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's book and write your own.
Passion For Writing Quotes
Take lots of time for yourself, discovering yourself-pursue not only a profession but other life passions, I always make time to rock climb or hike or write a few short stories. Also, find good people and surround yourself with them. Most importantly, always believe you will, unequivocally. — Sarah Silverman
My mother's passion for something more, to write a different destiny for a dirt-poor farmer's daughter, was to shape my entire life. — Faye Dunaway
You don't need attention to write. All you need is passion for your work and an overwhelming desire to tell a story you genuinely care about. Readers can sense your sincerity and it separates you from pretenders. — Sefi Atta
Long term consistency trumps short term intensity.
I have been doodling since childhood. I have a passion for illustrating but cannot paint or colour for that matter. I illustrate what I am trying to communicate through my writing. My images are like drawings in a science text book. — Devdutt Pattanaik
Whatever you have a passion for, then you must do. If you want to write, write about something you know about. — Jackie Collins
My passion for writing cookbooks really came from my love of collecting cookbooks. — Wolfgang Puck
Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about.
Jarrid Wilson has a passion and heart for God that is contagious. His genuine faith comes through powerfully in his teaching and writing. 30 Words points to the God of all wonder and grace in a way that will expand your faith and experience of God. — Jud Wilhite
If you don't have a burning passion for writing, how can you expect anyone else to be moved by what you write? — JoAnn Ross
I feel a passion for what we're trying to do.I mean, why does somebody who's old who's a writer keep writing? Because that's who they are. — Charles Koch
You do bits and you fake anger and you write a bit and you have passion for it. Then you do it too many times and you have to work up the anger... and I've never had to do that with Dr. Drew Pintsky. Dr. Drew is to medicine what David Blaine is to science. — Doug Stanhope
Short Story Quotes
Sail the main course in a simple sturdy craft. Keep her well stocked with short stories and long laughs. Go fast enough to get there but slow enough to see. Moderation seems to be the key. — Jimmy Buffett
It's possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things—a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman's earring—with immense, even startling power. — Raymond Carver
I've read short stories that are as dense as a 19th century novel and novels that really are short stories filled with a lot of helium. — Lynn Abbey
Until the lion learns to write, every story will glorify the hunter.
The novel wins by points, the short story by knockout. — Julio Cortazar
Jesus was short on sermons, long on conversations; short on answers, long on questions; short on abstraction and propositions, long on stories and parables; short on telling you what to think, long on challenging you to think for yourself. — Brian D. McLaren
A short story padded. A species of composition bearing the same relation to literature that the panorama bears to art. As it is too long to be read at a sitting the impressions made by its successive parts are successively effaced, as in the pa — Ambrose Bierce
Life is short. Spend it with people who make you laugh and feel loved.
To vary your inspiration, consider varying your inputs. Turn the sound off to watch a film, listen to the same song on repeat, read only the first word of each sentence in a short story, arrange stones by size or color, learn to lucid dream. Break habits. Look for differences. Notice connections. — Rick Rubin
My favorite author is Anton Chekhov, not so much for the plays but for his short stories, and I think he was really my tutor. — Gene Wilder
Short fiction seems more targeted - hand grenades of ideas, if you will. When they work, they hit, they explode, and you never forget them. Long fiction feels more like atmosphere: it's a lot smokier and less defined. — Paolo Bacigalupi
The story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short. — Abraham Maslow
Short Words Quotes
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. — Mother Teresa
Zoology, eh? That's a big word, isn't it." "No, actually it isn't," said Tiffany. "Patronizing is a big word. Zoology is really quite short. — Terry Pratchett
Write hard and clear about what hurts.
Nothing living should ever be treated with contempt. Whatever it is that lives, a man, a tree, or a bird, should be touched gently, because the time is short. Civilization is another word for respect for life. — Elizabeth Goudge
Charity may be a very short word, but with its tremendous meaning of pure love, it sums up man's entire relation to God and to his neighbor. — Aelred of Rievaulx
Prefer the familiar word to the far-fetched. Prefer the concrete word to the abstract. Prefer the single word to the circumlocution. Prefer the short word to the long. Prefer the Saxon word to the Romance. — Henry Watson Fowler
When you're riding, only the race in which you're riding is important. — Bill Shoemaker
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English - it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don't let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. — Mark Twain
In short, [Coltrane's] tone is beautiful because it is functional. In other words, it is always involved in saying something. You can't separate the means that a man uses to say something from what he ultimately says. Technique is not separated from its content in a great artist. — Cecil Taylor
Here in Manto's own words that he wanted to mark his grave with: "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto and with him lie buried all the secrets and mysteries of the art of short-story writing.... Under tons of earth he lies, still wondering who among the two is greater short-story writer: God or He. — Saadat Hasan Manto
I shall not be deterred by people who don't see where the future of Africa lies. It is the short-sighted people who put their opinions in writing. They don't understand that the future of all countries lies in processing. — Yoweri Museveni
I worked on 'Blue Peter' and 'Tonight' and lots of TV plays, filmed people like Rudolf Nureyev and Ted Heath, and ended up a senior cameraman with my own crew. I'd had my first short story published in 1947, and when my writing really started to take off I decided to go freelance, and eventually left the BBC in 1965. — Michael Bond
When writing, always hook the reader with your first sentence...in love, never settle...value yourself first and this will help you to value others...life is short, so enjoy it to the fullest...everyone in the world is different, and that's ok. — Spider Robinson
Philanthropy is not about giving money but about solving problems. While well-meaning, the idea of writing a check and calling it 'philanthropy' is extremely short-sighted and, unfortunately, extremely pervasive. — Naveen Jain
Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. — Henry David Thoreau
I had lots of time to read [being a lawyer] what I hadn't read in my school and college days. Being a bad student I barely passed my exams and I barely bothered about books. It was sports all the time. I started reading and got involved in literature and writing. The few cases I handled gave me the material for my early short stories. — Khushwant Singh
I write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite. — Carol Ann Duffy
For me, the short story is not a character sketch, a mouse trap, an epiphany, a slice of suburban life. It is the flowering of a symbol center. It is a poem grafted onto sturdier stock. — William H. Gass
The first writing I did was short short stories for a newspaper syndicate for which I was paid five dollars a piece on publication. — Theodore Sturgeon
Writing for me is a dragnet that carries everything away with it: expressions and figures of speech, postures, feelings, thoughts, troubles. In short, the lives of others. — Elena Ferrante
I wasted a lot of years working on my writing and very grandly saying, 'And now... My Novel!,' which would soon be reduced to a short story, then to a paragraph. — George Saunders
They say it's the good girls who keep diaries. The bad girls never have the time. Me, I just wanna live a life I'm gonna remember even if I don't write it down. — Tallulah Bankhead
Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better. — Ernest Hemingway
I began writing early - very, very early... I was already writing short stories for the radio and selling poems to poetry and art festivals; I was involved in school plays; I wrote essays, so there was no definite moment when I said, 'Now I'm a writer.' I've always been a writer. — Wole Soyinka
I have come to understand that life is too complex and much too short to let amateurs direct the story. I would rather let the Master Storyteller do the writing. — Steve Saint
My short stories are like soft shadows I have set out in the world, faint footprints I have left. I remember exactly where I set down each and every one of them, and how I felt when I did. Short stories are like guideposts to my heart. — Haruki Murakami
I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one... In return for picking up one of my books, I'm trying to give them value for their money... the goal of writing any book is to create the illusion that what you are reading is reality and you're part of it. — James Clavell
If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden. — Haruki Murakami
One of my standard - and fairly true - responses to the question as to how story ideas come to me is that story ideas only come to me for short stories. With longer fiction, it is a character (or characters) coming to visit, and I am then obliged to collaborate with him/her/it/them in creating the story. — Roger Zelazny
Short stories are designed to deliver their impact in as few pages as possible. A tremendous amount is left out, and a good short story writer learns to include only the most essential information. — Orson Scott Card
I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing. — William Faulkner
Many people have said to me, "What a pity you had such a big family to raise." "Think of the novels and the short stories and the poems you never had time to write because of that." And I looked at my children and I said, "These are my poems, these are my stories." — Olga Masters
I mostly write short stories. They are best written in a continuous creative process. You have a feel of immediacy. — Ruskin Bond
Well, as a short-story writer, I don't think there are any weaknesses to the genre itself. I guess I would say that the difficulty of the form is that one must create an entire world in five to 30 pages, as opposed to 300. There is very little room for fat - you must be economical. And you must begin as close to the end as you possibly can. — ZZ Packer
You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed. — Larry Niven
To write a short story, you have to be able to stay up all night. — Lorrie Moore
Short, sweet, and to the point. Clear writing, and therefore clear commands, comes from clear thinking. Think simple. — Tim Ferriss
In Conclusion
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