A Quote by Renata Adler

The whole magic of a plot requires that somebody be impeded from getting something over with.

Renata Adler

Quote Topics

Getting Magic Over Plot Requires Somebody Something Whole

Quote Author

Renata Adler
Italian - Journalist
Born: October 19, 1938

Like in comedy, you know the names of the people who steal things that others work really hard on. It really sucks. And, in magic, it's not just the hard work of getting the words and attitude and point of view right; you're taking an actual invention, making something over three or four years, and somebody can just take it.

David Copperfield

Most short stories have but one plot. The very best, however, have what I call a plot-and-a-half – that is, a main plot and a small subplot that feeds in a twist or an unexpected piece of business that ads crunch and flavor to the story as a whole.

Elizabeth Sims

Getting cut off from the knights' magic rock also required a period of exile from their giant glass mushroom. (Those of you in the Hushlands, I dare you to work that last sentence into a conversation. "By the way, Sally, did you know that getting cut from the knight's magic rock also requires a period of exile from their giant glass mushroom?")

Brandon Sanderson

A plot begins when somebody has something to hide.

John Banville

Fiction writers come up with some interesting metaphors when speaking of plot. Some say the plot is the highway and the characters are the automobiles. Others talk about stories that are "plot-driven," as if the plot were neither the highway nor the automobile, but the chauffeur. Others seem to have plot phobia and say they never plot. Still others turn up their noses at the very notion, as if there's something artificial, fraudulent, contrived.

James N. Frey

I had loved magic tricks from the time I was six or seven. I bought books on magic. I did magic acts for my parents and their friends. I was aiming for show business from early days, and magic was the poor man's way of getting in: you buy a trick for $2, and you've got an act.

Steve Martin

If somebody is disrespecting somebody, we should step in - even at the risk of getting slugged over the head.

Letitia Baldrige

I am not going to eat something that I have been told is not good for my system, and I do what I can to eat energy food, such as lean meats, whole grains, and lots of fruit and vegetables. Without this daily habit, my body would have given up a long time ago. There is no magic pill, no magic drink, no magic food.

Bernard Hopkins

I would get ill before going onstage - something about getting in front of people, and if they don't laugh, I'm a bomb. I got over it when somebody laughed.

Tim Conway

Whenever I sat down to write something it was never anything I took lightly. It was something that I'd want you, somebody in Japan, and somebody [over there to hear it].

Rakim

Do you ever get moods when life seems absolutely meaningless? It's like a badly-constructed story, with all sorts of characters moving in and out who have nothing to do with the plot. And when somebody comes along that you think really has something to do with the plot, he suddenly drops out. After a while you begin to wonder what the story is about, and you feel that it's about nothing—just a jumble.

P. G. Wodehouse

My outlines can be 10-20 pages in length and focus primarily on the physical active plot over the emotional plot.

Tony DiTerlizzi

Happiness is essentially perfect; so that the happy man requires in addition the goods of the body, external goods and the gifts of fortune, in order that his activity may not be impeded through lack of them.

Aristotle

I just always loved stand-up. It's like magic. You say something, and a whole room full of people laughs together. Say something else, they laugh again. The fact that people come to see that and participate in that... I don't know, it's just like magic.

Dave Chappelle

The time has mainly gone on getting Inform into a decent shape for public use. I suppose the plot of 'Curses' makes a sequel conceivable when compared with, say, the plot of 'Hamlet' but none is planned.