A Quote by George R. R. Martin

And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.

George R. R. Martin

Quote Topics

About Advance Advancement Advancing Also Because Care Cliffs Clothes Description Experience Feasting Fiction Gratuitous Guilty Having Just Little Necessary Notes Novels Philosophy Plot Read Reading Reading Fiction Sex Then Very Violence Why

Quote Author

George R. R. Martin
American - Novelist
Born: September 20, 1948

But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.

George R. R. Martin

Every time I do anything, I have to ask myself: Is it a good role, and is it right to do it? There may be sex or nudity or violence in the script, and then you have to say: Is it gratuitous just out to shock people? Or is it there because it has to be? If a role demands it, and it isn't gratuitous, I'll do it. It's my job, after all. I'm an actress.

Julie Andrews

Two things I do well in books are sex and violence, but I don't want gratuitous sex or violence. The sex and violence are only as graphic as need be. And never included unless it furthers the plot or character development

Laurell K. Hamilton

There should always be something gratuitous about art, just as there seems to be, according to the new-wave cosmologists, something gratuitous about the universe.

John Updike

I'm a pragmatist, and I don't like gratuitous fashion - in fact, there's not that much gratuitous anything in my life.

Kenneth Cole

There should really not be anything gratuitous in a work of art. Sometimes what seems as if it's gratuitous may be a passage in which a character is being characterized so that the reader comes to know him or her better.

Joyce Carol Oates

I don't ever want to be gratuitous, for the sake of being gratuitous, but when it serves the stories and the characters, it's nice to be able to do that, realistically and with credibility. You don't want to do it for the sake of it, or shoe-horn it in. But, it's a good tool to have in the toolbox.

Chris Chibnall

I'm very critical of crime novels that use gratuitous violence to shock readers when it isn't necessary. If that's all you have to offer as a writer, perhaps you're in the wrong job.

Michael Robotham

I really like gratuitous nudity. I hate when people go, 'I'll only do it if it makes sense for the movie'. It never makes sense. So I like it - the more gratuitous the better.

David Duchovny

A little bit of gratuitous violence in a well-thought-out story is fine.

Ray Wise

I think plot is very overrated. Plot is obviously necessary, but what I really care about is emotionally affecting the audience. Having a thought myself and then an emotional experience myself, somehow transferring that to the audience.