Kenneth Tynan Quotes

Underneath all his writing there is the settled determination to use certain words, to take certain attitudes, to produce a certain atmosphere; what he is seeing or thinking or feeling has hardly any influence on the way he writes. The reader can reply, ironically, "That's what it means to have a style"; but few people have so much of one, or one so obdurate that you can say of it, "It is a style that no subject can change.

What moves me most is style: the quality of the writing rather than the story being told.

I don't believe, in the end, that there is any such thing as no style. Even a very neutral, plain style, one that doesn't use colloquialisms, lyrical flourishes, heavy supplies of metaphor, etc., is a style, and it becomes a writer's characteristic style just as much as a thicker, richer deployment of idiom and vocabulary.

So, then, what is style? There are two chief aspects of any piece of writing: 1) what you say and 2) how you say it. The former is "content" and the latter is "style."

You can't argue with someone who believes, or just passionately suspects, that the poet's function is not to write what he must write but, rather, to write what he would write if his life depended on his taking responsibility for writing what he must in a style designed to shut out as few of his old librarians as humanly possible.

I don't see myself as experimenting in any conscious way, it's perhaps that certain books require different densities of language.

I write what's given me to write.

I don't like to make strong statements. I want to write strong novels... I keep my deep, radical things for my novels.

As a writer, I always tend to take the liberty and the great artistic luxury of a composite form of writing.

After all, it is style alone by which posterity will judge of a great work, for an author can have nothing truly his own but his style.

He can develop sense and style, in the manner of distinguished modern prose, in which event he may be sure that the result will not fall into any objective form.

To understand a literary style, consider what it omits.

When I started off with Trainspotting, it was the way the characters came to me. That's how they sounded to me. It seemed pretentious to sound any other way. I wasn't making any kind of political statement.

I do not speak through my characters; it's not a ventriloquist act.

Not even the severest critics of Jeffrey Archer can deny his style.

You can read my stuff; there are not very many quotes. It's more impressionistic.

Fine writing is a distinct disadvantage. So is unique literary style. They take attention from the subject

My mom is an artist and my own fiction is deeply visual.

Of Dickens' style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky, ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules... No young novelist should ever dare to imitate the style of Dickens.

the whole purport of literature...is the notation of the heart. Style is but the faintly contemptible vessel in which the bitter liquid is recommended to the world.

Your literary style reflects your personality.

There are writers who draw immediate attention to the fact that it's fiction. And I like some of that, but it doesn't really have the power.

I had my first exhibition in September, 2012. This was when I first introduced the public to my style of the incorporation of cloth in my paintings. It was well received and everyone was fascinated with the work on display. I also invited other young aspiring artist to display they work which was also well received.

Your writing", she said to me, "it's so raw. It's like a sledgehammer, and yet it has humor and tenderness. . . .

One of the reasons I'm not so keen on people calling me an "experimental" writer is that it suggests the work is about the experiment, when it's always the opposite - any "experimentation" is dictated by the material.