exceptional writing Quotes

The most beautiful prose paragraph yet written by any American.

Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.

You will have written exceptionally well if, by skilful arrangement of your words, you have made an ordinary one seem original.

A book of great beauty and manically exquisite insight with a wild and deadly humor . . . The only American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by genius.

I try to write in a way where you care deeply what the next paragraph will be. I hear the rhythm of prose and that, to me, distinguishes great writing from ordinary writing. By the way, I don't even claim that I'm good. I claim that I value it.

The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate.

The writing of Kathleen McGookey shines more brightly than most fine things we feel pleasure to read. Celebrate it!

Little Christian Bale. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and I re-watched it not too long ago, and my jaw just hit the floor. The whole time I was like, "Who wrote this? This is unbelievable." And then the credits came up at the end and it was Tom Stoppard, my favorite playwright. It's just an amazing piece of writing.

I knew, the second I read 'Humans,' that no matter how successful the show was, the script was superb and like nothing else I'd ever seen.

The complete novelist would come into the world with a catalog of qualities like this. He would own the concentration of a Trappist monk, the organizational ability of a Prussian field marshal, the insight into human relations of a Viennese psychologist, the discipline of a man who prints the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin, the exquisite sense of timing of an Olympic gymnast, and by the way, a natural instinct and flair for exceptional use of language.

Once something is well-written, then everything else is gravy.

'The House Of Tomorrow' offered such a fantastic script. I couldn't believe that script - it was just so original and unique.

No man ever wrote more eloquently and luminously [than Heraclitus].

I want to write such things as compel the admiring acclamation of the world at large, such things as are written but once in years, things subtle but distinctly different from the books written every day.

CEREMONY OF FLIES hits the road like a nitrous-fueled GTO...and then pulls the ultimate stunt of getting better. What starts as a deceptively simple hard-boiled noir story twists on itself and adds layers and grows stranger and before you know it, BAM - it's the end of the world and all you can do is hang on by your fingernails. This really, truly is one of the best novellas I've read in years.

I read the 'Kapoor & Sons' script in a half hour, forty five minutes. Not because I skimming through it... I read it like a book. By the end, I was blown away. I picked up the phone and said, 'This script is gold.'