A Quote by Adam Johnson

A good story feels both surprising and inevitable, fresh and familiar.

Adam Johnson

Quote Topics

Both Familiar Feels Fresh Good Good Story Inevitable Story Surprising

Quote Author

Adam Johnson
American - Novelist
Born: July 12, 1967

I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending.

Fred Rogers

It's always very important to me to try to create a story that feels unpredictable. You can't jump ahead and see what's coming, but at the end, when you've watched the whole thing, it all feels inevitable.

Noah Hawley

Anything that feels familiar and comfortable [is home]. It's wherever I feel safe and safest. Most of the time, that's just Barbados. It's warm, it's beautiful, it's the beach, it's my family, it's the food, it's the music. Everything feels familiar, feels right and feels safe. So, Barbados is home for me.

Rihanna

I usually have a general idea of where the story is going, but I try to avoid planning in too much detail. The best endings are those that emerge only after I've thought long and hard about the various ways the story might end. Then I choose the ending that seems surprising yet somehow inevitable.

Karl Iagnemma

Even with all of its changing, Brooklyn's architecture still feels like home, the language feels like home. It's changing so quickly that it's surprising. It's surprising still, when someone looks kind of askance to see me walking towards them.

Jacqueline Woodson

It [the Civil War] was a heroic struggle; and, as is inevitable with all such struggles, it had also a dark and terrible side. Very much was done of good, and much also of evil; and, as was inevitable in such a period of revolution, often the same man did both good and evil. For our great good fortune as a nation, we, the people of the United States as a whole, can now afford to forget the evil, or, at least, to remember it without bitterness, and to fix our eyes with pride only on the good that was accomplished.

Theodore Roosevelt

The Cloud Roads has wildly original worldbuilding, diverse and engaging characters, and a thrilling adventure plot. It's that rarest of fantasies: fresh and surprising, with a story that doesn't go where ten thousand others have gone before. I can't wait for my next chance to visit the Three Worlds!

N.K. Jemisin

London has always moved and surprised me, reinventing itself in ways both fresh and familiar. It's a contrary, complex and creative city, an anarchist of a thousand faces - fickle and unfailing, tender and bleak, ambitious and callous.

Rory MacLean

Everything should be at once surprising and inevitable.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Most good writing is clear, vigorous, honest, alive, sensuous, appropriate, unsentimental, rhythmic, without pretension, fresh, metaphorical, evocative in sound, economical, authoritative, surprising, memorable, and light.

Ken Macrorie

Right, wrong, good, bad, heaven, hell. I think that is the theme of my life. I think you have to know both in order to honestly choose one. So I'm familiar with both sides of the fence.

DMX

If it feels good, feels different, and falls in the middle of both of our wildly different tastes, then we know it's a Sofi Tukker song.

Tucker Halpern

I came up with this really crazy idea, this really small personal story that takes place in a universe that we are familiar with. Rocky is retired, kind of set adrift. He's very lonely in his world. His life has gone by waiting for the inevitable. It's not 'Rocky 7.'

Ryan Coogler

I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.

David Brin

I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring

David Brin

It always feels good to come back here. I love New York... it's just nice to see a lot of familiar faces.