Deborah Eisenberg Quotes

Reading aloud sounds like a good idea, but honestly, it doesn't work very well. Good dialogue in a book doesn't actually bear much resemblance to real-life dialogue. For example, if you've ever seen a word-for-word transcript of people talking, it doesn't read off the page very well. The trick is to make it *seem* like it's being spoken, not to make it speakable.

She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

Everything in writing begins with language. Language begins with listening.

I like stories, and I really like words. So I like stories that rely on dialogue.

It's not what enters men's mouth that is evil," said the alchemist. It's what comes out of their mouths that is.

When you tell a story in the kitchen to a friend, it's full of mistakes and repetitions. It's good to avoid that in literature, but still, a story should feel like a conversation. It's not a lecture.

Good stories flow like honey but bad stories stick in the craw [gullet]. What is a bad story? It's a story that cannot be absorbed in the first time of reading. It's a story that leaves questions unanswered.

I really think that in the media world that we live in now, especially for writers, it has to be a conversation. With very few exceptions, it can't be this one-way, 'Here I am on the mountaintop preaching to all of you great unwashed readers in hopes of saving you.' It doesn't work that way.

Half of a broadcast show, in my experience, is things happening, and the other half is people talking about how they feel about the things that happened. And so there's this sense of everyone saying their subtext out loud.

I'm not a big fan of there being voiceovers in movies. I really prefer it when the film tells it story.

I know I'm not a great writer. I'm an extremely gifted oral communicator, but when it comes to writing, I'm just a beginner.

I'm trying to move a little more toward literary fiction while still retaining a popular feel.

I look for good scripts, not anything. It should inspire me, and the audience should like it.

I like to start every sentence with: 'So here's the deal.'

Writing is too lonely. I'd rather talk.

When I give a speech, I tell it like a story.

The idea of having a narrative guiding the viewer through and grasping their attention is a really compelling thing.

I'm good at description and imparting flow to a story, but I don't necessarily understand the value of long scenes.

I think making a documentary gets you out and about more, with people. With stand-up, you're talking at people. With documentaries you're talking with people, and you're listening a lot more.

Even Dopehri,' if somebody has a bit of imagination, the way it's written, they will be able to see that it's a screenplay with dialogues.

Dialogue is the most fun to write. It's kind of like a tennis match.

I love to read the kind of books I write. Genre-breaking. Fresh-concept. World-building. My all-time top three authors would have to be Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Harris, and Pat Conroy.

As an author, you think you know where the good parts and the bad parts are. And then you read to a group of children, and you learn when you're boring them, and you hurry through those sections to get to the parts where they're interested again. You start to get a sense of your story's rhythm and flow.

Faulkner wrote for film, and his ear is just impeccable.

I enjoy stories that can spark a conversation.