We all now tell stories by cutting from one dramatic scene to the next, whereas Victorian novelists felt free to write long passages of undramatic summary.
quote by Ken Follett
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
quote by Graham Greene
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Stop Being So Dramatic
You tell me what you think and mean.
But why you don't,
Let it go!
When we're walking in the streets,
There's always a scene.
And under spotlight...
You begin your show.
Let it go.
Your past and those bitter things.
Let it go.
Why can't,
You let it go.
Does your happiness mean anything?
Then you've got to let stuff go!
Let it go.
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go.
Stop being,
Those worst of fanatics.
Let it go.
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go.
Stop being,
The worst of fanatics.
You spend your days fantasizing from your window.
Locked up tight without a social life.
And you tell 'me' I'm growing old.
But I'm not sitting with my eyes half closed.
Or watching my life pass by...
From a window.
Let it go.
Your past and those bitter things.
Let it go.
Why can't,
You let it go.
Let it go.
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go.
Stop being,
The worst of fanatics.
Let it go.
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go.
Stop being,
The worst of fanatics.
You tell me what you think and mean.
But why you don't,
Let it go!
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go.
Stop being,
The worst of fanatics.
Let it go.
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go.
Stop being,
The worst of fanatics.
You let life flow to pass you from your window!
Framed-in-pain...
Let it go!
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go!
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go!
Stop being so dramatic.
You need a hit to spark that light inside!
Let it go.
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go!
Stop being,
The worst of fanatics.
You let life flow to pass you from your window!
Stop being so dramatic.
Stop being so dramatic.
Stop being so dramatic.
Stop being,
The worst of fanatics.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
It's just really, really beautiful. Each scene is one long 15 minute take without cutting. My scene is with Robin Wright-Penn so I'm pretty excited about that.
quote by Jason Isaacs
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
As we have seen, WikiLeaks is a robust organization. During my time in solitary confinement in the basement of a Victorian prison, we continue to release, our media partners continued to write stories. The important revelations from this material continue to come out. We have approximately 2,000 cables into 250,000.
quote by Julian Assange
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Faded Pages
Recently I started retyping
a manuscript of short stories
I had written twenty years ago.
The pages were faded;
too much time being opened to the sun.
As I typed, I smiled
at the things I had written
and the dialogue I had created.
The stories are about a cat
and looking at the world
through his eyes and thoughts.
I had even created him a language
that I had to write a glossary
at the back of the book to explain
what some of the phrases meant.
There is a vast array of characters
and most have a funny turn.
I also remember what prompted me
to write the stories long ago.
My original intention was to write
one story and one story only,
but a friend of mine at the time
persuaded me to write another and another.
Before long, a volume was finished
with enough stories to start another.
From a one off story I have written over sixty now
about the cat and all his friends.
Now as I flick through these faded pages,
which I haven’t read in years,
I find myself being reunited
with many long lost friends.
26 January 2009
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Some Stories
some stories
about ourselves
are also the stories of
themselves
and then we write
these stories and
pretend that these are
but some short stories
from our mind
now in different names
and places
we read them and then
we wish that some of
these short stories
are not true at all
sometimes for those
we want to be
we want to believe
them to be true
wishes and hopes and
regrets, what if? what if i
chose that rather than this?
we poets write about pain
and joys and we tell sometimes
that we only fake them
deep inside we are silent
we prefer just to be left alone
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I don't think many people have ever read the report. Who has read 26 volumes of this case? How many read the summary? If you read the summary, it takes a long time.
quote by John Sherman Cooper
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
Douglas Adams in The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
How Do You Write Poetry
There is a question I am often asked,
of which I have no answer for at all.
The question is a simple one,
how do you write poetry?
To be honest I haven’t got a clue.
With me the words just trickle out
one after the other,
if they rhyme that is great
and if they don’t, I just scratch my head.
I cannot tell anyone how to write,
for me it’s just a natural thing.
I write almost everything,
novels, short stories, poems and songs.
I have even written a couple of plays,
but that was a long, long time ago.
However to tell anyone how to write,
I would not know where to begin.
The answer I give to the question is simple;
write whatever you like good or bad.
It’s yours and be proud of it
no matter what anyone else has to say.
The more you write the better you will get.
However, the most important thing
that you should always remember and that is
that you write, write, and write!
9 November 2011
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Cutting It Fine
The door swings open but you wont go it
You hate the movie that you havent seen
You couldnt see what I have in mind
I see you laughing but youre
Cutting it, cutting it fine
You never should have done those things to me
Theres one thread left tween you and history
And while our temperature is rising high
Im warning you that you are
Cutting it, cutting it fine
Cutting it, cutting it fine...
You gambled all on one important game
Now take the debt and dont complain
Your game was up, I saw it all the time
I saw that vice, girl, youre
Cutting it, cutting it fine
Your sole advisor watch out for yourself
You never listen to anyone else
You were the one who ignored the signs
Dancing on a fine line
Cutting it, cutting it fine
Cutting it, cutting it fine...
song performed by by Asia
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Moirai
When He came home from work that day
He said “Enough’s enough”.
“Let others built the widgets,
I have done that long enough.”
I’ll live a life of leisure,
crafting poetry and song.
Perhaps I’ll write short stories
or play my guitar all night long.”
Such boundless optimism
didn’t take Fate into account.
Fate, the foe of youth and love,
was lurking there about.
He thought that He had years of time
to write and think and putter.
Yet Fate was of another mind,
and a malediction muttered.
A tightness in the chest He felt.
A soreness in one arm.
He was sure that it was nothing.
Soon thereafter, He was gone
poem by John F. McCullagh
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
It Is Me
He sat in his own world
writing down the stories
that came to his mind.
He never watched time,
for him there
was no time.
He wrote stories of love,
of mystery and suspense.
He wrote of everything
that popped into his head.
He was not a lonely person
as his characters kept him company.
He wrote things
for every writing sphere,
but there was one thing
he could not write
which may come as a surprise
to everyone.
He could not write a letter
no matter how hard he tried.
His mind went completely blank
whenever he tried.
Yet he could write
just about everything else.
He could write songs,
he could write stories at will.
He could write poems
on everything,
but writing a letter
was something he could not do.
Now all who read this
might take it as a joke,
but it is very true
every word I have spoke,
and how would I know that.
The answer is simple it is me.
19 April 2008
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Many novelists take well-defined, precise characters, whose stories are sometimes of mediocre interest, and place them in an important historical context, which remains secondary in spite of everything.
quote by Raymond Queneau
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative world.
quote by John Fowles
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
I think it's also the case that I'm not as widely travelled, or as well-educated in history, as most of the other novelists I meet: so I have to write about my own country, at the present time, because it's more or less all I know about!
quote by Jonathan Coe
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry.
quote by William Golding
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
By Those Interested In War History
By those interested in war history war history is read
But the winners write the war history or so it is said
That is how it is and will always be
What is true to one is not to another that's how it seems to me
Of war and war heroes many stories are written and many poems to recite
And mostly of war winners that war writers stories do write
And readers believe what they want to believe
And the mothers of the war dead for their dead children grieve
In war as in life 'tis the winners who count
And the stories of losers to little amount
For the dead war heroes many a parade
And far too many films of war have been made
And 'tis mostly the winners write the war history
That is how it is and always will be.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
0190 A novel fairy story for a poetic multi-faith Giftmas
‘Cinderella’ (I’m using this pseudonym
to protect her identity, now she’s
ex-hot, ex-famous) , while sweeping, dusting,
fire-lighting, all that deprived childhood stuff -
felt that she had more to offer;
had not realised her full potential; so
in a cheap exercise book, wrote her
fictionalised life-story, suitably worked up,
in her spare moments; even, when short of incident,
setting up some neat situation with
her ugly sisters etc.
thanks to her friend Buttons who
was computer-literate, hence
his name, ha, she
self-published and, with a wand-wave from
her Fairy Godmother
by ‘sheer chance’ when her sisters had a famous critic
and, unusually, discoverer of talent, to dine,
hit the headlines – Booker Prize
in an off-year, interviews, weary book tours of the US,
life-style articles, all that,
- a gift to journalists, rags to riches story –
was courted through many photo-opportunities
by ex-hot celebs in search of boosting their
waning reflected glory… in short,
Hit It Big.
‘We always knew
her talent’ wrote her botoxed sisters…
until one day, her Fairy Godmother
winging past late as usual and slightly
tetchy with it, reckoned that
Our Heroine had had her fifteen minutes
and wondered what to do to slap her down; until
she remembered that she’d fixed that too –
Famous First Book Novelists
have to spend the following year
while the rest of us are having fun out there,
seeing their name fade from the headlines
and the gossip columns and
the stories planted by their PR
and cutting down on the parties
and those they do go to, they
are only half-there as they watch
for 'material', as a break from
sitting at their desk while confidence
dwindles into self-doubt
and the critics sharpen up their talons, as Last Year's Winners
scrape out that Second Novel..
and the Fairy Godmother (who
doubles as the Wicked Witch, it’s
a divine joke) chuckled in a somewhat
double-edged way, whilst checking
the time and remembering that for fairies,
arriving late increases the dramatic tension.
there’s a moral here for poets too but
to point it out would be
uncool
poem by Michael Shepherd
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To Afford
To afford the scene is torture, as it speaks,
For always is the scene, and the scenery.
Or will tomorrow sustain the ideas of your dream,
That wakes this hour up, and then the summary
Of your life extends to the utmost limit.
Goals of the future reside in the head
To stun and stagger us, with its own initiative,
Without the flowers and plants and planets.
To afford the pain and sting
We forsake years of living well,
We are feeble in this forsaken way
And the way of the hour is fought.
poem by Naveed Akram
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!