Nathan Englander Quotes

A good novel should be deeply unsettling - its satisfactions should come from its authenticity and its formal coherence. We must feel something crucial is at stake.

I like to be surprised. Fresh implications and plot twists erupt as a story unfolds. Characters develop backgrounds, adding depth and feeling. Writing feels like exploring.

Ideally, I like to integrate the human issues into the suspense story itself.

The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human.

What I've realized is that a film operates both on the intellectual and emotional levels, and if you can find a way to tell a riveting story and draw ideas out of that, it's very powerful.

I thought 'Dead Man's Shoes' was a masterpiece.

I hate even the idea of a synopsis. When stories are really working, when you're providing subtextual exploration and things that are deeply layered, you're obligated to not say things out loud.

I love gritty drama. I'm passionate about films and drama that make you think - hard-hitting, gravelly characters.

I prefer drama; I think character-driven drama is my favorite kind of stuff to go watch, and I like being challenged by that kind of stuff in that way.

I want readers turning pages until three o'clock in the morning. I want the themes of books to stick around for a reader. I'm always trying to find a way to balance characters and theme.

No matter how hard we strive for objectivity, writers are biased toward tension - those moments in which character is forged and revealed.

I think that I am interested in the resonance between character drama and high stakes, either situational or political or social or other kind of elevated drama, and I tend to find that those things combust.

One of the great things about fiction is you can use an issue and describe it in human terms.

I think that's the great thing about all 'Black Mirror' episodes - it really leaves you with this feeling of not knowing how to feel.

I think the best endings bring you back in rather than close things off with absolute finality. I'm not saying they necessarily have to be ambiguous, but we don't always need to know what happens when everyone wakes up tomorrow morning.

When I read 'Meadowland,' I could see the potential for a very internal, quiet story that could be powerful and emotional but also disturbing and dark.

It's why we're actors: to be able to tell the stories that really matter.

I think 'The Condemned' has a great story. It's a lot more than a mindless action flick.

The endings to me are the key moment in 'Weekend' and '45 Years.' I know how I want my gut to feel at the ending. Even if I can't articulate in words what that feeling is, I'm trying to find ways to get there.

Every story is organic, and every story finds its own ending.

Content-driven films can make money - something that is gripping, is a journey of revelation and is relevant is cinema.

I really care more about the human drama than I do the thriller stuff.

I think there's a fundamental distinction between character-driven movies that are just really lovely slice-of-life movies and character-driven movies that you remember 20 or 30 years later; the common denominator with the ones you remember is that they all have some really complicated emotional problem at their core.

We need the villain sometimes. It makes for an interesting story.

Sarah Cooper sounds like a character on 'The O.C.,' who was written out in season two, and it's like she moved into my body and gentrified my whole personality.