A Quote by Howard Nemerov

Short stories amount for the most part to parlour tricks, party favours with built-in snappers, gadgets for including recognition and reversals

Howard Nemerov

Quote Topics

Amount Built Favours Gadgets Including Most Part Party Recognition Short Short Stories Stories Tricks

Quote Author

Howard Nemerov
American - Poet
February 29, 1920 - July 5, 1991

You can't write a novel all at once, any more than you can swallow a whale in one gulp. You do have to break it up into smaller chunks. But those smaller chunks aren't good old familiar short stories. Novels aren't built out of short stories. They are built out of scenes.

Orson Scott Card

I think the reason the stories are briskly paced, when they are, is that I like story. I like stories where things happen and there are surprises and reversals, in addition to vivid characters and a memorable voice. So those are the kinds of stories I try to write. And it turns out that's pretty much the only kind of writing that works for TV. It's a medium that just devours story, demands surprises and reversals. So my sensibility is suited to TV storytelling, at least as we think of it today.

Nick Antosca

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

To be resigned when ills betide, Patient when favours are deni'd, And pleas'd with favours given, - Dear Chloe, this is wisdom's part; This is that incense of the heart Whose fragrance smells to heaven.

Nathaniel Cotton

You can write when you're dyslexic, you just can't read it. But I started writing short stories as a child and I found the short story format a real nice one. I love short stories and I love short documentaries or short films of any kind.

Billy Bob Thornton

Most stories in 'True Blood' take place over a short amount of time. I think the entire three seasons of the show have only spanned a month and a half of those characters' lives.

Michael McMillian

Will you walk into my parlour? Said the spider to a fly: '"Tis the prettiest little parlour That ever you did spy.

Mary Howitt

I like fiction that deals with matters that are of burning importance to us in our private lives. And not all short stories are like that. In general, short stories - and maybe this is a little bit off-topic - but I think short stories have this bad association with, like, waiting rooms.

Lorin Stein

During my younger days, we didn't have digital media or electronic gadgets the way we do now. So the best part of my day was the one I spent either in listening to stories from my elders or reading them.

Sudha Murty

I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.

Dan Chaon

There can be no doubt that probability increases with practice. Fortune favours the brave, fortune favours the prepared mind, and fortune favours those who work the hardest.

Michael Kenna

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

A novel requires a certain kind of world building and also a certain kind of closure, ultimately. Whereas with a short story you have this sense that there are hinges that the reader doesn't see. I would say that all short stories have mystery naturally built into them.

Dan Chaon

What is the disease which manifests itself in an inability to leave a party--any party at all--until it is all over and the lightsare being put out?... I suppose that part of this mania for staying is due to a fear that, if I go, something good will happen and I'll miss it. Somebody might do card tricks, or shoot somebody else.

Robert Benchley

If you want to really sort of quantify the dereliction of the Republican establishment, those two facts are the most important two facts. One, that they didn`t even understand the base of their own party, white working class voters who you know what, don`t care about tax cuts for the rich, really aren`t interested in the things that the elite part of their party want, including immigration reform. And number two, they spent eight months avoiding finding opposition research to use against the guy who was becoming the front-runner in their party that they don`t want.