Quotes
Authors
S. S. Van Dine

"A detective novel should contain no long descriptive passages, no literary dallying with side-issues, no subtly worked-out character analyses, no 'atmospheric' preoccupations. Such matters have no vital place in a record of crime and deduction. They hold up the action and introduce issues irrelevant to the main purpose, which is to state a problem, analyze it, and bring it to a successful conclusion. To be sure, there must be a sufficient descriptiveness and character delineation to give the novel verisimilitude."

Source : S. S. Van Dine (2015). “Twenty Rules For Writing Detective Stories”, p.6, Booklassic

S. S. Van Dine

#Character Quotes #Successful Quotes #Issues Quotes

“A clone of Einstein wouldn't be stupid, but he wouldn't necessarily be any genius, either.”
“We have to see that we're a part of each other, and we have to take care of each other. The reason why they have universal health care in Canada and Britain, these other places? Because they believe if one suffers, everybody suffers.”
“Some of your greatest blessings come with patience.”
“Learning how to shine a pair of shoes to me was like if you could do, you were like you were on your way to having abilities and skills as to be able to spit-shine a pair of shoes like they're patent leather. You're a bad dude. To spit-shine a pair of shoes. So, even to that small detail, that aided me and assisted me in becoming the artist that I am. My uncles' sense of style, their type of ties they used. The way they wore their suits, big and huge and baggy. The way they did their haircuts with the side burns. All of that.”
“Parliamentary committees are becoming more independent, tactics are becoming more sophisticated, and industries that don't want to be bushwhacked by some damaging legislative amendment will have to spend more time and money watching the Hill.”
“Anticipation almost always exceeds the reality of that which we anticipated.”
“I have little faith in the theory that organized killing is the best prelude to peace.”
“Iâ€™ve always wondered why love has to be so full of conflict and strife. Why canâ€™t love be simple? Why canâ€™t it just be as pure as two people who realize that they canâ€™t live as well, or as happily, apart as they can together?”

You may also like: