98 Short Story Quotes for You to Enjoy

When I was nine years old, I wrote a short story called 'How to Build a Snowman,' from which no practical snowperson-crafting techniques could be gleaned. The story was an assignment for class and it featured a series of careful but meaningless instructions. Of course, the building of the snowman was a red herring. Sloane Crosley

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I would recommend the short story form, which is a lot harder to write since you have to be so careful with words, until there is plenty of time to doodle through a novel. Anne McCaffrey

The short story is kind of a precision tool. It allows me a certain type of freedom to go in and out of the American landscape, without having to commit myself to a full-length novel. I find a lot of novels out there very boring. David Means

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I think most short story writers, at one time or another, over the course of several books, naturally skirt near the edge of one genre or another. David Means

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A short story collection can be as exciting as a novel. It is a real complete experience, like when you listen to a real good recording, a Beatles record, and there are so many good songs. David Means

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A short story can be really interesting and enriching and powerful, but a novel just contains so much more information and richness and depth. That's what I strive for in my music. I want to create something that's like a longform statement. St. Lucia

A subplot is a distinguishing characteristic of the novel; the short story, for example, does not need subplots. Darin Strauss

Example Characteristic Distinguishing For Example Does Short Short Story Story Novel Need

I think I got spoiled and that writing a short story and getting it published, or writing a novel and getting it published, you pretty much get to do the first, second and third draft yourself without a whole lot of interference. John Sayles

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I often think of the novel as a form that celebrates social groups, and the short story being a form that is capable of celebrating an individual or a sort of insular little pair of people. Antonya Nelson

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There was a time in my life when I wasn't sure I'd ever write a short story again because I had started writing novels, and I am fundamentally a lazy person, and the fact is that a novel is a lazy person's form, really. That is, you can amble; you can digress. Elizabeth McCracken

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I often say flippantly that the short story is... shorter; you can be done with it more easily. It's much less of a commitment of time and energy than a big project like a novel or long nonfiction book. Bobbie Ann Mason

I come from a prose background. I come from short story background, and that led me into novels. Greg Rucka

Me Background Prose Come Led Short Short Story Story Novels

I got a couple of stories published, but the kind of money you were making for publishing a short story, I could see I wasn't going to make a living at it. Hooman Majd

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If I'm really rolling with a short story, I work on it everywhere and end up with a finished draft in a couple months, but a novel really demands that I step out of my life and vanish into the world of the book. Laura van den Berg

When I'm working on a short story, I could duck into a bathroom at a crowded party and write a scene, which is to say I can work in a very incremental way. Laura van den Berg

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I had never written anything before in my life except maybe in high school when I wrote a short story, and my mother had to put an ending on that. Nicole Jordan

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In anything you write - in a short story, a poem - there has to be a counter-motion; it can't go all in one direction. Donald Hall

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I know for a fact that - it's just the way our biases work now in the industry of literature, but certainly a short story collection does not receive the same kind of attention as a novel. Junot Diaz

Maybe storytelling belongs in audio - a short story is the length of a commute. That can be a sacred spot where you have the ear of the reader without having to compete with other media like games or TV. Paolo Bacigalupi

A ten- or twelve-page story seems too easy, which is a funny thing to say considering that writing a decent short story is devastatingly difficult. Yet it still seems easier than a novel. You can turn a short story on a single good line - ten pages of decent writing and one good moment. Ethan Canin

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I've waited for a novel from Charles Yu with eager anticipation since being bowled over by his 2006 short story collection, 'Third Class Superhero.' Sarah Weinman

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After 'A Suitable Boy,' I didn't write anything, not even a short story. I thought to myself: 'I ought to start writing.' But I can never force myself to write. Vikram Seth

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I don't think I would have written a combat novel if I had just had peacetime military training. I think, in fact, I probably would have remained a poet and just written a short story every now and then. Joe Haldeman