"A novel, in the end, is a container, a shape which you are trying to pour your story into."

-- Helen Dunmore

#Trying Quotes #Stories Quotes #Shapes Quotes

“A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.”
“When people discuss his plays, he says that he feels like he's standing at customs watching an official ransack his luggage. He cheerfully declares responsibility for a play about two people, and suddenly the officer is finding all manner of exotic contraband like the nature of God and identity, and while he can't deny that they're there, he can't for the life of him remember putting them there. In the end, a play is not the product of an idea; an idea is the product of a play.”
“The atonement, or forgiveness of sin once and for all achieved on the cross, weighs in, and heavily. But the atonement is confirmed, ratified, sealed, and made enduringly good by virtue of Christ's rising from death. Our justification hinges on a risen life, present in us now because Christ is present with us now.”
“One day the world will look upon research upon animals as it now looks upon research on human beings.”
“I'm still an atheist, thank God.”
“Printed prose is historically a most peculiar, almost an aberrant way of telling stories, and by far the most inherently anesthetic: It is the only medium of art I can think of which appeals directly to none of our five senses. The oral and folk tradition in narrative made use of verse or live-voice dynamics, embellished by gesture and expression--a kind of rudimentary theater--as do the best raconteurs of all times. Commonly there was musical accompaniment as well: a kind of one-man theater-of-mixed-means.”

Source : John Barth (1984). “The Friday book: essays and other nonfiction”, Putnam Pub Group
“The Grape that can with Logic absolute The Two-and-Seventy jarring Sects confute: The sovereign Alchemist that in a trice Life's leaden metal into Gold transmute.”
“A black cat among roses, phlox, lilac-misted under a quarter moon, the sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock. The garden is very still. It is dazed with moonlight, contented with perfume...”

You may also like:

Andrea Levy
Author
Diana Athill
Editor
Jessie Burton
Author
Kate Grenville
Author
Kathryn Lasky
Author
Margaret Drabble
Novelist
Pat Barker
Writer
Rose Tremain
Author
Maggie O'Farrell
Author