Quotes of: Detective-stories Keyword

As I prefer to see it, there has never been an epic love story that involved significant amounts of self-control.

Write like no one is reading 2

Remember that the truth within yourself will always be greater than the truth found in these pages. These stories are here to guide us—to help us find that truth, not to tell us what it is.

The Waterproof Bible

Women's fiction is just a marketing category, designed to appeal more to women than to men. But there are stories in that category that any human being would like.

Wickedly Charming

All cat stories start with this statement: "My mother, who was the first cat, told me this...

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

I think the best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

What you need to remember is that there’s a difference between lecturing about what you know and using it to enrich the story. The latter is good. The former is not.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story.... Writing is seduction. Good talk is part of seduction.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Comparisons deplete the actuality of the things compared... ("Conveyance: The Story I would Not Want Bill Wilson To Read")

Why I Don't Write Like Franz Kafka

A half-truth is 90% of the story. The other 10% is tithed to God.

Who Moved My Choose?: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change by Deciding to Let Indecision Into Your Life

Upon examination of a people’s history, beware the story teller’s motives.

From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with "The Divine Presence"

Most stories are not about people but about life, an addiction like the rest of them that destroys you even as you love it, but you love it anyway and can never get enough.

Winter Solstice

Dogs and children vomit in distress. Women cry. ("Dial 'O' For Operator")

Weird Shadows From Beyond: An Anthology Of Strange Stories

I dreamed I was a single moment in a single day. A note struck and vanished. A sounding. A reckoning. Gone.

The World and Other Places: Stories

This is awful. I don't know what's going to happen to me or to anyone else in the world.

Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

Well, well, well," said Aitch Dee, his arms folded across his chest. "Well, well, well, well," replied Pavel, not to be out welled.

A Whole Nother Story

Loneliness is just a passing disillusion we can conquer by acknowledging those around us.

Who I Am: American Scar Stories

There was this funny thing of anything could happen now that we realized everything had.

Where I'm Calling From: New and Selected Stories

America—where we hate our fathers, love our mothers, and everyone is hung up on trying to be a man

White Wedding Lies, and Discontent: An American Love Story

To know our refuse is to know ourselves. We mark our own trail from past to present with what we've used and consumed, fondled, rejected, outgrown.

The Winter Without Milk: Stories

In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail