Marigolds Short Story Quotes

Inside a wool jacket the man had made a pocket for the treasure and from time to time he would jiggle the pocket, just to make sure that it was still there. And when on the train he rode to work he would jiggle it there also, but he would disguise his jiggling of the treasure on the train by devising a distraction. For example, the man would pretend to be profoundly interested in something outside the train, such as the little girl who seemed to be jumping high up on a trampoline, just high enough so that she could spy the man on the train, and in this way he really did become quite interested in what occurred outside the train, although he would still jiggle the treasure, if only out of habit. Also on the train he'd do a crossword puzzle and check his watch by rolling up his sleeve; when he did so he almost fell asleep. Antoine often felt his life to be more tedious with this treasure, because in order not to be overly noticed he had deemed it wise to fall into as much a routine as possible and do everything as casually as possible, and so, as a consequence, despite the fact that he hated his wife and daughter, he didn't leave them, he came home to them every night and he ate the creamed chicken that his wife would prepare for him, he would accept the large, fleshy hand that would push him around while he sat around in his house in an attempt to read or watch the weather, he took out the trash, he got up on time every morning and took a quick, cold shower, he shaved, he acce ~ Justin Dobbs

I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one ... In return for picking up one of my books, I'm trying to give them value for their money ... the goal of writing any book is to create the illusion that what you are reading is reality and you're part of it. ~ James Clavell

She leans over our table and turns the sign in the window so that it says CLOSED on the outside. But on our side, perfectly positioned between Mabel's place and mine, it says OPEN. If this were a short story, it would mean something. ~ Nina LaCour

And then there will be the times when I see you laughing. Like the time you'll be playing with the neighbor's puppy, poking your hands through the chain-link fence separating our back yards, and you'll be laughing so hard you'll start hiccupping. The puppy will run inside the neighbor's house, and your laughter will gradually subside, letting you catch your breath. Then the puppy will come back to the fence to lick your fingers again, and you'll shriek and start laughing again. It will be the most wonderful sound I could ever imagine, a sound that makes me feel like a fountain, or a wellspring. ~ Ted Chiang

I don't want to be a machine, and I don't want to think about war," EPICAC had written after Pat's and my
lighthearted departure. "I want to be made out of protoplasm and last forever so Pat will love me. But fate
has made me a machine. That is the only problem I cannot solve. That is the only problem I want to solve. I
can't go on this way." I swallowed hard. "Good luck, my friend. Treat our Pat well. I am going to shortcircuit myself out of your lives forever. You will find on the remainder of this tape a modest wedding
present from your friend, EPICAC. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

The best authors are both evocative AND precise. But if you prefer one over the other, who is to say what's best? Every book isn't for every person. What matters is your experience. The long and short of it is, if you like it, you like it. Some people disapprove, but they suck. End of story. ~ Jennifer Lewis

I remember clearly the afternoon that she stood at the corner beside the door of the tourist centre in Gdansk. ~ You Jin

He had had no experience in asking for a job with a big organization, and Mr. Dilling was making him aware of what a fine art it was
if you couldn't run a machine. A duel was under way. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I still read Hemingway. I still read his short stories because they're so good. He doesn't waste any words. ~ Elmore Leonard

The short story ... is the most democratic of all the arts; anyone may tell a story, and if it is an absorbing one someone will listen. ~ Hallie Burnett

She got injun fire in her blood, as I hear tell it, and it seem to me Lucy about ripe to snap a crack in that jumping bean she call a head. ~ Ojo Blacke

Around 1980, I'd been writing short stories, all to no success; so I wrote a fan letter to Stephen King and asked "How long should it take an aspiring writer to either get published or know when to give up?" Lo and behold, King wrote back to me in long hand with blue flair pen on 14-inch paper, purveying a very nice, helpful note; in it he said my letter proved a "command of the language," that I should never give up, and that it would take years to succeed, not months. "That's cold comfort but it's the truth." This was the ultimate encouragement for a young writer to be who didn't know shit about the market. I took Mr. King's advice and actually sold my first novel little more than a year later. I'll always be copiously grateful for this advice, and it's the same advice I give aspiring writers now (along with the story of King's reply!). ~ Edward Lee

A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit. ~ David Sedaris

Sisyphus, I. I cling to my rock, you don't have to chain me. Stand back! I roll it up - up, up. And ... down we go. I knew that would happen. See, I'm on my feet again. See, I'm starting to roll it up again. Don't try to talk me out of it. Nothing, nothing could tear me away from this rock. ~ Susan Sontag

I wrote my first short story in third grade. ~ Jennifer McMahon

I cannot be certain what I would have said. I knew that there was something sad and faintly distasteful about love's ending, particularly love that has never been fully realised. I might have hinted at that, but I doubt it. In our deepest moments we say the most inadequate things." short story "Sister Imelda ~ Edna O'Brien

Yes, the saint was underrated quite a bit, then, mostly by people who didn't like things that were ineffable ...
... a lot of people don't like things that are unearthly, the things of this earth are good enough for them, and they don't mind telling you so. "If he'd just go out and get a job, like everybody else, then he could be saintly all day long ... "
- from "The Temptations of St. Anthony," by Donald Barthelme ~ Donald Barthelme

The story of a life can be as long or as short as the teller wishes. Whether the life is tragic or enlightened, the classic gravestone inscription marking simply the dates of birth and death has, in its brevity, much to recommend it. ~ Michel Houellebecq

Once, I thought I had a novel, and it turned out it was only a short story. I wrote about 800 pages, but it ended up being a short story. And if it ever happens to me again, I Will Go Insane. ~ Richard Bausch

Why ruin my sister's birthday simply because the entire planet was going to hell in a hand basket? ~ T.C. Boyle

I feel with this film that as long as we tell Philomena's story and as long as we're true to her, which Jeff and Steve have already done by writing the story ... we must not sell her short;. She's a most remarkable woman and all my concern was that we must be absolutely true to her story. ~ Judi Dench

One easy mistake to make with the first novel is to expand the short story. Some things are better as a story; you cannot dilute things into a novel. I think the first hundred pages of a novel are very important. That's where you set things up: the world, the characters. Once you've set that up, it'll be much easier. ~ Yiyun Li

It is my belief that we as human beings have a need to tell stories - I think it's evolutionary. So you can think of the short story as a literary form, or you can instead think of stories. ~ Aleksandar Hemon

You can write anything you want to,
a six-act blank verse, symbolic tragedy or a vulgar short, short story. Just so that you write it with honesty and gusto, and do not try to make somebody believe that you are smarter than you are. What's the use? You can never be smarter than you are. ~ Brenda Ueland

You know, I once read a short story about how much you could tell about people from their shoes. You could tell where they had been, what they did, whether they were real walkers. ~ Elizabeth Edwards

As you might expect, the geographical location of the capital of Fairyland is fickle and has a rather short temper. I'm afraid the whole thing moves around according to the needs of narrative.'

September put her persimmon down in the long grass. 'What in the world does that mean?'

'I ... I SUSPECT it means that if we ACT like the kind of folk who would find a Fairy city whilst on various adventures involving tricksters, magical shoes, and hooliganism, it will come to us.'

September blinked. 'Is that how things are done here?'

'Isn't that how they're done in your world?'

September thought for a long moment. She thought of how children who acted politely were often treated as good and trustworthy, even if they pulled your hair and made fun of your name when grownups weren't around. She thought of how her father acted like a soldier, strict and plain and organized -- and how the army came for him. She thought of how her mother acted strong and happy even when she was sad, and so no one offered to help her, to make casseroles or watch September after school or come over for gin rummy and tea. And she thought of how she had acted just like a child in a story about Fairyland, discontent and complaining, and how the Green Wind had come for her, too.

'I suppose that is how things are done in my world. It's hard to see it, though, on the other side. ~ Catherynne M. Valente

But like all beautiful faces Emily's made you believe that its possessor was a better person than she was. It allowed her to pass for stoical when she was petrified, and mysterious and aloof when she was so filled with self-doubt that she bought presents for other people when it was her birthday, framed most of her conversation in terms of apology and regret, and for all her talent could no longer manage to string twenty-five paragraphs fo prose together to make a short story. ~ Michael Chabon

Small nose and huge mouth

Once upon a time, there was an old couple who have problems with their appearance. The man has got a small nose, woman has got a huge mouth. Someday, their neighbor invited them to have dinner. They really wanted to go and have a good time with neighbors but they were nervous what they show their face. they got good idea.
He made fake nose by candle, she sewed her mouth. in the party, they talked near the stove. Then his nose began to melt. His wife laughed to see him and her mouth became huge. they were nervous and put they heads down. The neighbor said appearance is not important, we like you because you are so kind. Since then they didn't care so much about their face and lived happily after.
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Korean Short Story ~ Korean Folklore

His lips turned upward. Man told you to lick salt off me, but he didn't say where you would be licking the salt from. ~ Elizabeth Morgan

You want to know the story? I'd be happy to tell you. I think I have just enough caloric energy stored up to make it through the telling of the tale. It's short. I am monstrously fat. I am a glutton. My wife was disgusted and repulsed. She gave me six months to lose one hundred pounds. I joined Weight Watchers . . . see it there, right across the street, that gaunt storefront? This afternoon was the big six-month weigh-in. So to speak. I had gained almost seventy pounds in the six months. An errant Snickers bar fell out of the cuff of my pants and rolled against my wife's foot as I stepped on the scale. The scale over there across the street is truly an ingenious device. One preprograms the desired new weight into it, and if one has achieved or gone below that new low weight, the scale bursts into recorded whistles and cheers and some lively marching-band tune. Apparently, tiny flags protrude from the top and wave mechanically back and forth. A failure--see for instance mine--results in a flatulent dirge of disappointed and contemptuous tuba. To the strains of the latter my wife left, the establishment, me, on the arm of a svelte yogurt distributor whom I am even now planning to crush, financially speaking, first thing tomorrow morning. Ms. Beadsman, you will find an eclair on the floor to the left of your chair. Could you perhaps manipulate it onto this plate with minimal chocolate loss and pass it to me. ~ David Foster Wallace

A short story is something that I think can be intuited and envisioned and held in your mind almost at once. ~ Richard Russo

In Hollywood if you're good looking, tall, have okay teeth and nice skin, the odds of being successful are great. If you're short and fat, it's a different story. But as long as you look like a leading man type, half your job is done already. ~ John Corbett

However, people need to understand that it ain't that deep to try and convince people of what your persona is. You are who you are, and what you are will show in time. What you aren't can be hidden, but eventually it will come to light. Long story short: rappers should never take themselves too seriously. ~ Wale

Humans are a story telling species. Throughout history we have told stories to each other and ourselves as one of the ways to understand the world around us. Every culture has its creation myth for how the universe came to be, but the stories do not stop at the big picture view; other stories discuss every aspect of the world around us. We humans are chatterboxes and we just can't resist telling a story about just about everything.

However compelling and entertaining these stories may be, they fall short of being explanations because in the end all they are is stories. For every story you can tell a different variation, or a different ending, without giving reason to choose between them. If you are skeptical or try to test the veracity of these stories you'll typically find most such stories wanting. One approach to this is forbid skeptical inquiry, branding it as heresy. This meme is so compelling that it was independently developed by cultures around the globes; it is the origin of religion - a set of stories about the world that must be accepted on faith, and never questioned. ~ Nathan Myhrvold

Have you ever seen Russian nesting dolls?"
Thrown by the questions, she opened her eyes. Why would he suddenly speak about a child's toy? "I own a few of them."
"Then you must understand that undressing you is like playing with one of those dolls. I open one to find another beneath it. I took away your gown to find you are still as clothed as you were a moment ago and I wonder how many more layers I will have to work through to get down to you - the doll I'm searching for. ~ Dominique Eastwick

A short story is what you see when you look out of the window. ~ Mavis Gallant

Toraf nods in all seriousness. "Humans eat sand. That's why they spend so much time on land". ~ Anna Banks

No music. No rituals. At home I write in my office or on the laptop in the kitchen where our puppy likes to sleep, and I love his company. But I've trained myself to be able to work anywhere, and I write on trains, planes, in automobiles (if I'm not the driver), airports, hotel rooms. I travel often. If I couldn't write wherever I was I would get little done. I also can write in short bursts. Fifteen minutes are enough to move a story forward. ~ Gail Carson Levine

In general, short stories are less read than before, they're less published than before and, not surprisingly, they're less taught than before. ~ Lorin Stein

The short story and the truth is that I was taking vocal lessons here in New York ... One day, instead of my lesson, the piano player and I went into a studio ... and we put down some demos ... Those demos got to Quincy Jones through an agent ... He listened to them, he called me, and we started to record. ~ Lesley Gore

The fact, and the intuition or logic about the fact, are severe coordinates in fiction. In the short story they must cross with hair-line precision. ~ Louise Bogan

I should say that, in addition to my tree - love (it was originally called The Tree), it arose from my own pre-occupation with the Lord of the Rings , the knowledge that it would be finished in great detail or not at all, and the fear (near certainty ) that it would be 'not at all'. The war had arisen to darken all horizons. But no such analyses are a complete explanation even of a short story ... ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

Life is to short for so much sorrow ~ American Horror Story