30 Quotes by Sol Stein

Dialogue, contrary to popular view, is not a recording of actual speech; it is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes.

Writers of nonfiction have the right – perhaps even the responsibility – to access the wonders of the writer’s craft to make their work interesting and enjoyable.

Parents begin by loving their children; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

I see manuscripts and books that are spoiled for the literary reader because they are one long stream of top-of-the-head writing, a writer telling a story without concern for precision or freshness in the use of language. Some of this storytelling reads as if it were spoken rather than written, stuffed with tired images that pop into the writer’s head because they are so familiar. The top of the head is fit for growing hair, but not for generating fine prose.

Tension produces instantaneous anxiety, and the reader finds it delicious.

A writer who always has his characters “walk” is missing opportunities.

The novelist is like the conductor of an orchestra, his back to the audience, his face invisible, summoning the experience of music for the people he cannot see. The writer as conductor also gets to compose the music and play all of the instruments, a task less formidable than it seems.

We are all writers from an early age. Most of what we write is nonfiction – essays for school, letters to friends, memoranda to colleagues – in which we are trying to pass on information. We are raised with a traditional nonfiction mind-set. Even when we write love letters, we are trying to communicate how we feel and not necessarily trying to evoke an emotion in the recipient, though that might be better suited to our purpose.

The function of suspense is to put the reader in danger of an overfull bladder.