Kate Grenville Quotes

I didn't necessarily have a total idea when I was writing the movie of where everything was going. I just wanted to have really realistic dialogue and write like people I knew talked. I tried to keep it very real.

The trouble with telling a good story is that it invariably reminds the other fellow of a dull one.

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

Good dialogue is very important.

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

He who talks more is sooner exhausted.

I do do a lot of talking, because it saves me listening.

Talking is the disease of age.

Speech is the small change of silence.

It's much easier to read the stories that have a lot of dialogue; of course, they flow much more easily into speech.

How time files when you's doin' all the talking.

Talking is always positive. That's why I talk too much.

People, by and large, would rather be talking than listening.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

I want to write a book that makes people debate, and makes people think, interact with each other and exchange ideas... I write because I'm engaged in this big conversation.

I'm not good at dialogue. I'm not good at holding a mirror up at a real world. I'm not good at believable characterisation.

If other people are going to talk, conversation becomes impossible.

Without a dog, no one will listen to your opinions for more than a few minutes without interrupting to tell you their opinions, which you won't find nearly as interesting.

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

When there's no place for the scalpel, words are the surgeon's only tool.

People that want to talk can talk. Even a parrot talks. People are always going to have their thoughts on what they're going to say.

Engagement is always better then disengagement. If we don't talk, somebody else will.

As an editor, you're constantly dealing with the best way to convey an exchange between two people. So when I'm shooting, I'm just aware in the back of my head what an editor might want.

Dialogue is generally the worst choice for exposition. When you're writing lines you need to focus on the way people actually talk. And when we talk to each other we never actually explain our terms. We don't say 'Sweetheart, would you pass me the sugar bowl, which we picked up for a song at that antique stall in Munich.'

Conversation: The slowest form of human communication.