Henry Ian Cusick Quotes

The nature of good fiction is that it dwells in ambiguity.

A novel should be a book of questions, not a book of answers.

I like stories that leave you wanting more, leave you wondering, but don't tell you everything.

Movies work, in my opinion, on the best level when they're more enigmatic, when we don't say it's this or that and where it raises more questions than answers.

Mystery is the basic element of all works of art.

In older science fiction stories, they had to rely on storytelling as opposed to spectacle. The old run of the 'Twilight Zone,' the star was the writing and the storytelling, and the characters and the twists and the cleverness in the setup and payoff and execution.

Anita Shreve is an author I adore. I rip through her meaty books and get off on the robust romance immensely - especially if I am feeling less than robust in my real life.

The enduring appeal of mystery stories for all of us is that the world is a pretty confusing place. There's a lot of really unanswered things, and perhaps the scariest notion would be that there might not always be answers out there for us.

I think kids want the same thing from a book that adults want - a fast-paced story, characters worth caring about, humor, surprises, and mystery. A good book always keeps you asking questions, and makes you keep turning pages so you can find out the answers.

To answer that I have to describe what I think is my responsibility as a thriller writer: To give my readers the most exciting roller coaster ride of a suspense story I can possibly think of.

I try to write stories that are thrilling and full of mystery and funny all at the same time, stories that raise moral questions but come up with very few moral answers, stories that emotionally touch readers through the characters.

I realized how wonderful YA is and how I really wanted to write something that created that level of intrigue.

Literature is the question minus the answer.

The purpose of narrative is to present us with complexity and ambiguity.

Don't be so familiar and so much into the details. Keep people dreaming. Close the window, and make them wonder.

The thing I loved about Alfred Hitchcock is that he left a lot of open ends there, a lot of clues that didn't really add up the way you think they would, and sometimes, not at all.

Part of the brilliance of Stieg Larsson's books is that they are so complex, so many different facets coming together.

I think 'Pretty Little Liars' is going to be hugely popular for adults, for kids, for girls, for guys, you know, something for everyone to look at, and the stories are going to be great. There's suspense every week. The friendship is really fun to watch. I think it's going to have something for everybody.

Fiction works when it makes a reader feel something strongly.

A play, after all, is a mystery. There's no narration. And as soon as there's no narration, it's open to interpretation. It must be interpreted. You don't have a choice... Each play can become many things.

If 'The Blacklist' taught me anything, it was kind of open-ended intrigue and leaving questions unanswered. Creating this kind of mystery by virtue of depriving the audience of these easy answers was what I was kind of into.

Maybe 'Doonby' will haunt people for awhile and make them wonder, 'What was that really about?' And that excites me as an artist.

I think once you write fiction, you put it out, and it can be interpreted in a variety of ways, some of which are going to be shocking to the writer.

Fiction, even when it's grim and hard, is fun.

I know 'Lost' used to drive people mad trying to anticipate what was happening or what something meant.