Chris Hughton Quotes

Of course on air I use occasional hyperbole to tell a story.

Hyperbole engaged in consciously to achieve a desired effect can be, as we have noted, a useful rhetorical tool. Indeed, its use in this manner is sometimes called "exaggeration in the service of truth." However, there's much to be said for restraint of tongue and pen, and restraint refers not only to what we say but also to how we say it. It is possible, believe it or not, to be emphatic without indulging in overstatement; it is possible to be forceful without exaggerating.

In my own writing, I think of myself as a realist who exaggerates a little.

I think writers are prone to hyperbole sometimes.

Do I exaggerate? Boy, do I, and I'd do it more if I could get away with it.

The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to their dream.

It allows you to say things that sound very dramatic and get away with it. If you had characters in modern fiction say the same things as they're driving down the street in an Oldsmobile they'd sound ludicrous!

I live in a constant state of hyperbole.

Inflated descriptions by the pen or exaggerated illustrations by the pencil.

Most people, it seems, stretch the truth to make themselves seem more impressive. I, it seems, stretch the truth to make myself look worse.

Never a man to understate matters

I'm prone to hyperbole.

Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak.

I was raised by and have raised people who regard telling one story when two would do as a sign someone is not really trying.

I tend to basically exaggerate in life, and in writing, it's fine to exaggerate. I really enjoy overstating for the purpose of getting a laugh. For another thing, writing is easier than digging ditches. Well, actually, that's an exaggeration. It isn't.

It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of telling lies skillfully.

The theatre is a gross art, built in sweeps and over-emphasis. Compromise is its second name.

Take it not amiss, O speech, that I borrow weighty words, and later try hard to make them seem light.

It has often been observed that the repercussion of poetic language on prose language can be considered a decisive cut of a whip.

Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.

In character, as it were, the writer settles for an impression of what happened rather than creating the sense of the thing happening.

I think that as is true in this industry, everything gets blown out of proportion because it's more fun for people to read about. It's even more fun to read about if the stories get wilder and wilder.

The object of poetic activity is essentially language: whatever his beliefs and convictions, the poet is more concerned with words than with what these words designate.

Exaggeration is a blood relation to falsehood and nearly as blamable.

Somehow, you can achieve a directness in the novel that you can't get anywhere else.