The pattern of a newspaperman's life is like the plot of 'Black Beauty.' Sometimes he finds a kind master who gives him a dry stall and an occasional bran mash in the form of a Christmas bonus, sometimes he falls into the hands of a mean owner who drives him in spite of spavins and expects him to live on potato peelings.
A. J. Liebling
You learn different things through fiction. Historians are always making a plot about how certain things came to happen. Whereas a novelist looks at tiny little things and builds up a sort of map, like a painting, so that you see the shapes of things.
A. S. Byatt
Some movies I see today have the most dramatic plot points but the actors are not playing them dramatically.
Aaron Eckhart
I consider plot a necessary intrusion on what I really want to do, which is write snappy dialogue.
Aaron Sorkin
When we try to push the envelope, there are certain sectors of society that say this is a Zionist plot to sort of destabilize our country, or this is an American agenda.
Abdullah II of Jordan
I think with musicals, it's much more part of the script. They don't want songs that would stop the show; they need songs that keep the plot moving.
Adam Schlesinger
I don't want to be Batman. Let Val Kilmer do it. I just want to be Uncle Batman. I have this whole 'warm relationship' plot in my mind. In the final scenes, the new Batmobile breaks down, the new Batman's stranded on the side of the road. We grab our old Batmobile, pick him up and drive away.
Adam West
I love the idea of trying to do the work of old-fashioned novelists of plotting and of really making you curious about what's going to happen next and all that, but also trying to load it up with your weird thoughts and opinions.
Adrian Tomine
Language is the ticket to plot and character, after all, because both are built out of language.
Aimee Bender
Characters are incredibly important, but I tend to build them around the plot during the outline stage. However, once I'm writing the manuscript, the characters I'm writing dictate how the plot unfolds.
Aimee Carter
I was studying to be an architect, I wasn't plotting to join the movies. Films were just another career option. I took acting up with the same schoolgirl enthusiasm I had for examinations. Acting is a job and I take it very seriously.
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan
'True Blood' differs from 'Six Feet Under' in that there are way more characters and plot-lines, but fundamentally it's still about the characters and their emotions.
Alan Ball
I don't really write plots. I use history as the engine that drives everything.
Alan Furst
Imgur is a data-driven company, and our community is our most important signal. But you can't perfectly plot humans neatly into a chart. It takes someone with instincts and empathy to truly understand the community and represent them in all of the company decisions.
Alan Schaaf
Part of the mystique of shows like 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' is the idea that they begin with a couple of plot lines, and then a bunch of geniuses improvise dialogue. It's not quite that unstructured and loose. It makes for a good urban myth, but everything's a little more tightly scripted and programmed than that.
Alan Thicke
A lot of the fun of 'Gravity Falls' comes from the secrecy surrounding the plot. We want fans to be able to guess and speculate, to be surprised by twists and be engaged when they get things right.
Alex Hirsch
When you're watching a Hitchcock movie, you, for most of the movie, are playing the guessing game. What's the endgame? What's the plot? How are these people involved? It's the best way to tell the story, and as a viewer, that's what you want to experience.
Alex Kurtzman
I think modern television shows, with their intricate plots, are stimulating our minds. This is one reason IQs have been going up.
Alex Tabarrok
Television is much more complex, brain-challenging and involved than it used to be. It's almost impossible to watch a television show from 15 years ago; it's just too boring. I think modern television shows, with their intricate plots, are stimulating our minds. This is one reason IQs have been going up.
I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.
Alexander McCall Smith
The winner must promote social jusitce, remove corruption and discrmination, and stand against political, cultural and economic plots.
I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself.
I love a well-plotted story. But I'm just not that kind of writer, and it's not necessarily by choice. When I manipulate plot, I feel I lose authenticity.
I don't want to write about violence, and I don't want to hang a plot on a murder. I think it's cheap.
Character is primary. What happens as far as plot and events is not as intriguing to me as what's happening inside this particular person.
Stripped of its plot, the 'Iliad' is a scattering of names and biographies of ordinary soldiers: men who trip over their shields, lose their courage or miss their wives. In addition to these, there is a cast of anonymous people: the farmers, walkers, mothers, neighbours who inhabit its similes.
You know, 'Mad Men' is notoriously secretive with its plotlines, even with exposing them to actors on the show.
I'm a stickler for structure. So I tend to make sure I'm hitting certain points in the script and that I'm progressing and moving things along. You know, are the characters keeping the plot moving along? And are they true, and do I know their motivations?
I get a very vague idea and - perhaps because I once was a journalist, or perhaps because that's what made me want to be a journalist - I go off and explore it for a bit, rather than mapping out a plot and then filling in the research.
I read Claire Messud's 'The Emperor's Children,' I read Joseph O'Neill's 'Netherland' - but to me, they're not 9/11 novels. In 'The Emperor's Children,' 9/11 felt to me like a piece of the plot; the novel wasn't wrestling with what 9/11 meant. And 'Netherland' felt the same way. I liked both books a lot but I don't see them as 9/11 novels.
There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.
When I was younger, I talked to the adults around me that I respected most about how they got where they were, and none of them plotted a course they could have predicted, so it seemed a waste of time to plan too long-term. Since then, I've always gone on my instincts.
As a matter of writing philosophy, if there is one, I try not to ever plot a story. I try to write it from the character's point of view and see where it goes.
My feeling for reality TV isn't ironic, guilty, or apologetic. Reality TV is one of the few remaining modes of popular entertainment in which characterization is permitted as plot.
The plot of my 'Phantom' is pretty much mine. It's based on the Gaston Leroux book - I've taken a lot of liberties with it.
I never make a note of anything; I never even write a plot down.
Eventually, while researching, you'll learn something you didn't want to know. Some fact that ruins a plotline you had in mind. The good news is that sometimes, learning all the facts can make for a much more interesting story than you originally had in mind.
I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.
Grief doesn't have a plot. It isn't smooth. There is no beginning and middle and end.
Traditionally in crime fiction, women exist as a bedroom convenience or to screw up in order that the plot may progress. I wanted no part of that.
I don't know how to write a novel in the world of cellphones. I don't know how to write a novel in the world of Google, in which all factual information is available to all characters. So I have to stand on my head to contrive a plot in which the characters lose their cellphone and are separated from technology.
I do not believe evil men are led by God. I believe there are plots of evil. We live in a sinful world, and there are a lot of things that happen as a result of sin.
The thing should have plot and character, beginning, middle and end. Arouse pity and then have a catharsis. Those were the best principles I was ever taught.
Time, in general, has always been a central obsession of mine - what it does to people, how it can constitute a plot all on its own. So naturally, I am interested in old age.
Part of being innovative in government is sometimes not trying to plot out the last chapter of the book, but to be open and see what comes back.
My writing has always been what you call 'narrative fiction' in the sense that it's got very strong plots and twists at the end.
Finishing something is the hardest part. You know it's not as good as you hoped. You know there are plot problems. You know that by finishing it, you're saying - even if only to yourself - 'This is the best I can do.' And because it's not perfect, that's really hard.
In constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction, the poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes. In this way, seeing everything with the utmost vividness, as if he were a spectator of the action, he will discover what is in keeping with it, and be most unlikely to overlook inconsistencies.
Each time I'm starting to work on a film, even if I love to settle the plot in the real world, I start to think about the plot as a fairy tale, or a dream, or a nightmare... As if it was the best way to tell the truth about characters or narration, instead of realism.
Hindi film music has always been completely driven by the plot. We singers never had any say in compositions.
