A Quote by Evan Esar

[Statistics] Fiction in its most uninteresting form.

Evan Esar

Quote Topics

Fiction Form Most Statistics Uninteresting

Quote Author

Evan Esar
American - Writer
1899 - 1995

The most interesting characteristic of the cube is that it is relatively uninteresting. Compared to any other three-dimensional form, the cube lacks any aggressive force, implies no motion, and is least emotive. Therefore, it is the best form to use as a basic unit for any more elaborate function, the grammatical device from which the work may proceed.

Sol LeWitt

Romantic poetry and fiction of the last 2000 years has blinded us to the fact that emotions are a low form of jungle consciousness. Emotional actions are the most contracted, dangerous form of fanatic stupor.

Timothy Leary

I like photographs of anything uninteresting. Maybe just two doors on a wall... The point is to be uninteresting.

Robert Rauschenberg

I seem to turn out stories that violate the discipline of the short story form and don't obey the rules of progression for novels. I don't think about a particular form: I think more about fiction, let's say a chunk of fiction.

Alice Munro

Why is autobiography the most popular form of fiction for modern readers?

Jill Ker Conway

If you look at the statistics regarding Native Americans, you will see that most of the tribes since the 70s have improved their economic situation in some form. And this has been brought about by their aggressive assertion of their sovereign treaty rights.

Leonard Peltier

The most popular American fiction seems to be about successful people who win, and good crime fiction typically does not explore that world. But honestly, if all crime fiction was quality fiction, it would be taken more seriously.

George Pelecanos

Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment.

Jean Baudrillard

We've had fiction from the time of cave drawings. I think fiction, storytelling, and narrative in general will always exist in some form.

Edwidge Danticat

Most of my stories, if not all of them, have some basis in real life. That's the kind of fiction I'm most interested in. I suppose that's one reason I don't have much respect for fiction that seems to be game playing.

Raymond Carver

I would say that most of my books are contemporary realistic fiction... a couple, maybe three, fall into the 'historic fiction' category. Science fiction is not a favorite genre of mine, though I have greatly enjoyed some of the work of Ursula LeGuin. I haven't read much science fiction so I don't know other sci-fi authors.

Lois Lowry

As soon as the circumstances of an experiment are well known, we stop gathering statistics. ... The effect will occur always without exception, because the cause of the phenomena is accurately defined. Only when a phenomenon includes conditions as yet undefined,Only when a phenomenon includes conditions as yet undefined, can we compile statistics. ... we must learn therefore that we compile statistics only when we cannot possibly help it; for in my opinion, statistics can never yield scientific truth.