A wonderful story collection set between one place and another and shaped by a fearless sense of comedy.
When I feel that I'm going to write a detective story, I buy a five pound box of chocolates and a ream of paper. When the candy is all gone and the paper all used up, I know that the book is long enough.
At some point in the journey of being in it for yourself, you realize you need other people. Any good frontier story, in some respect, is about that.
Our own genomes carry the story of evolution, written in DNA, the language of molecular genetics, and the narrative is unmistakable.
I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.
Olive Kitteridge' is a masterpiece: The writing is so perfect you don't even notice it; the story is so vivid it's less like reading a story than experiencing it firsthand.
There's also something happening in television similar to what happened in the '80s, when people stopped taking so many drugs and wanted to hear real instruments in music again. I think people want plot, story and characters. Those are more important than having a big star.
I have a blog where I keep in touch with my fans. I write about things that are important to me. Sometimes on there I'll just tell a little story about the things that happen in my everyday life. People seem to enjoy them well enough.
All sorrows can be borne if you can put them into a story.
I don't really do themes. I might accidentally, but themes are an emergent phenomena of the writing of the book, of just trying to get a story out there.
The most important part of a story is the ending. No one reads a book to get to the middle.
Once you become the story off-screen, you are less likely to be the onscreen one.
The London 'Academy' has seen fit recently to scoff at the critics who have been exercising themselves ove rthe so-called art of the Short Story. . . But the new Short Story has gained more individuality. It supports the magazines and has invaded the newspapers
But why should I read what somebody else thinks of my life when I know the real story?
The secret is to start a story near the ending.
I guess you never know what's going to come at you in life, but the answer is never to crawl into a box and throw in the towel. There is good that can come from anything, even if it's just a later laugh and a good story.
Actors are merely the medium through which a story happens.
A Writer says: read what I have written An historian says: listen to my lecture A critic says: listen to what I think A journalist says: let me tell you a story.
It is true that the movie is perhaps my most politically-charged. The story is thrust into motion by the idea of what do you do when your 13 year old daughter comes home pregnant. And not only is she pregnant, but she wants to keep the baby.
Sometimes the story takes you to places that you want to go and sometimes it takes you places you don't want to go.