Ann Patchett Quotes

You can't rely on the acting to tell the story.

An idea might spark an essay, but never a story.

The most important thing is the story. Not the script, but the story.

What makes a story a story is that something changes. Internal, external, small or large, trivial or of earth-shattering importance. Doesn't matter.

You have only so many chances to tell stories. I didn't want to be forever wedded to one form of storytelling when there are so many out there.

I've always loved short stories. Even before I was a writer, I was reading short stories - there were certain writers where I just felt like they could do in a short story what so many writers needed a whole novel to do, and that was really inspiring to me.

Personally, I love books, and I am interested in the notion that stories are told better in different media depending on the story.

My main goal is to tell a story.

Plot is a literary convention. Story is a force of nature.

Story is what's most important.

It's all still about having a good story. You have to have a good story as your anchor, as your main focus. So for me, personally, I just like to concentrate on writing the best book I can, and if there's other stuff that goes along with it, that's awesome, as long as the story is central.

A good story is like a bitter pill, with the sugar coating inside of it.

There is a set of balances and rhythms to a novel that we can't experience in real life. So I think there is a sense in which fiction can rescue history from confusion.

The story is the first thing and the last thing.

No matter what happens with technology or whether you're in traditional animation or stop-motion or CG, the biggest challenge always is story. The flow of making the movie is usually determined by how your story is coming together, and when your story is straining and you can't quite get your hands around it, your entire production is straining.

You have to know the story that you're telling, and you have to know the tone in which the story is being told.

A performance can have amazing visuals and special effects, but it has to tell a good story, even if that story isn't original.

A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.

The novel wins by points, the short story by knockout.

There's always a story. It's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.

I think a little menace is fine to have in a story. For one thing, it's good for the circulation.

A story is a living thing, it moves and shifts.

The story is the only thing that's important. Everything else will take care of itself. It's like what bowlers say. You hear writers talk about character or theme or mood or mode or tense or person. But bowlers say, if you make the spares, the strikes will take care of themselves. If you can tell a story, everything else becomes possible. But without story, nothing is possible, because nobody wants to hear about your sensitive characters if there's nothing happening in the story. And the same is true with mood. Story is the only thing that's important.

I have also led you astray by talking of technique as if it were something that could be separated from the rest of the story. Technique can't operate at all, of course, except on believable material.

But if you don't understand that story is character and not just idea, you will not be able to breathe life into even the most intriguing flash of inspiration.