Scene Setting Quotes

With all of the qualities of the scene-setting, the dialogue, the place and time and the time and place in which your characters move. And I want to move with the characters, move with them and describe the world in which they are living. ~ Gay Talese

The staircase was a mass of rotting wood, carved with such cruel-looking mermaids that Mr. Jelliby was afraid to put his hand on the banister. ~ Stefan Bachmann

I think of it as the lasagna approach to writing because I'm always adding layers. I'll sometimes do it layer by layer, with dialogue, attribution, action, objects in the scene, setting ... It can be sometimes that delineated. ~ Chelsea Cain

I don't know'," he said. "Those three words from a willing soul are the start of a grand and magnificent voyage." And with that he began a discourse that lasted for several weeks, covering scene-setting, establishing conflict, plot twists, and first- and third-person narration. [ I learned in these rapid-fire mini-dissertations that like most literature lovers I would come to know, Henry was a book snob. He assumed that if a current author was popular and widely enjoyed, then he or she had no merit. He made a few exceptions, such as Kurt Vonnegut, although that was mostly because Vonnegut lived on Cape Cod and so he probably had some merits as a human being, if not as a writer.
I think that the way Henry saw it was that he was not being a snob. In fact I would venture that in his view of things, snobbery had nothing to do with it. Rather, it was a matter of standards. It was bout quality in the author's craftsmanship. ~ John William Tuohy

Having spent almost two decades setting up and running Fortis, our mission of saving and enriching lives is an integral part of my being. Over time, this has inspired me to do more direct service and give back to society a little of what I have received in abundance. ~ Shivinder Mohan Singh

If the poem is so moving that even if you have no experience in that particular setting be it 1920's Harlem let's say. You still are so moved that you can put yourself in that position. That means that the writer has managed to go beyond the personal and touch the humanity in all of us and it's really a blast to read it because I realize how that this does hold true for the truly great poems. ~ Rita Dove

I don't like improvising on camera, particularly, but very often, a scene will not be working, and you rehearse it once or twice, and you realize something's missing. So I'll play with it until it makes sense. ~ Alan Arkin

Pride is a terrible and dangerous thing. It can take so many forms; it can even assume the appearance of humility. Pride can lead not only to self-exaltation, but also to self-abasement. The key to battling pride is not found in struggling against thinking too highly of ourselves or in striving to think of ourselves as lowly. The key is found in simply not thinking about ourselves at all, but setting our minds on Christ and the needs of others. ~ Paul Washer

Chemistry is you touching my arm and it setting fire to my mind
Nayyirah Waheed ~ Nayyirah Waheed

The Americans fished on, not hoping for much anymore, perhaps for a miracle, searching for small things to be happy about, because they were Americans and this was what their upbringings had taught them to do. They found a brief happiness, for example, in the potato chips that came to their rooms on expensive china and in the genuinely hopeful way the hotel girl asked if they'd had any luck. They took pleasure in their morning calls to the Lufthansa man, his wriggly explanations for the canceled flights to Norway. They smiled at the way a church had been built so the setting sun hit it high and perfect and orange, and the way they could follow the river to a park where miniskirted women lay in the grass with headphones clamped over their ears, and even at the way the little student-girls came filing down at noon behind their English-teaching beauty to call them fools. ~ Anthony Doerr

You complain of Catholicism for setting up an ideal of virginity; it did nothing of the kind. The whole human race set up an ideal of virginity; the Greeks in Athene, the Romans in the Vestal fire, set up an ideal of virginity. What then is your real quarrel with Catholicism? Your quarrel can only be, your quarrel really only is, that Catholicism has _achieved_ an ideal of virginity; that it is no longer a mere piece of floating poetry. ~ G.K. Chesterton

I have spent my life on the road waking in a pleasant, or not so pleasant hotel, and setting off every morning after breakfast hoping to discover something new and repeatable, something worth writing about. ~ Paul Theroux

Taylor held a finger up to Val and Kate. "Hold that thought for a second while I get this."
As she headed into the living room, she overheard Kate mumble to Val, "Hold what thought? I haven't understood a word she's said yet."
Taylor unlocked her front door and opened it. Before she could react, Jason barreled right in, all fired up.
"Where have you been?? I tried calling you - is your cell phone off? I need you to tell me who the hell I can sue. I just met with Marty - we got back the mock-ups for the new publicity posters the studio's going to use to promote Inferno ."
Jason stormed into the kitchen, so engrossed in his rant he didn't notice Valerie and Kate. He opened Taylor's fridge and helped himself to a bottled water.
"And get this," he fumed angrily, "the dumbasses who designed the posters have me pictured in this scene where I'm putting out a fire with all these other firemen. But if you look at the poster from the side, the water from the hose of one of the other firefighters looks like it's shooting right out of my crotch. And the best part is, they want to put this poster over the theater entrance for the premiere. I can just see it - " He gestured grandly to the air. " 'Come see Inferno! Get pissed on by Jason Andrews!'"
With that, he threw Taylor a wink. "It should be right up your alley."
Finished with his rant, Jason took a sip of water. Then he finally noticed Kate and Val. He smiled charmingly.
"Oh. People. Hello."
Julie James

My grandmother, when she looked at American movies, she said, 'They're all the same. In the first scene somebody shoots somebody and then everybody makes phone calls.' ~ Marina Abramovic

Acute focus, open sharing, exacting measurement, a license to shoot for the moon - these are the hallmarks of modern goal science. ~ John E. Doerr

In those helter-skelter days of journalism between the Spanish-American War and World War I, the newsies shouting the headlines were as much a part of the urban street scene as the lampposts on every corner. ~ David Nasaw

America's new tea lovers are the people who have forced the tea trade to wake up. Elsewhere, tea has meant a certain way, a certain tradition, for centuries, but this is America! The American tea lover is heir to all the world's tea drinking traditions, from Japanese tea ceremonies to Russian samovars to English scones in the afternoon. India chai, China green, you name it and we can claim it and make it ours. And that's just what we are doing. In this respect, ours is the most innovative and exciting tea scene anywhere. ~ James Norwood Pratt

September morn Do you remember how we danced that night away Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play September morning still can make me feel this way. ~ Neil Diamond

Into the field of
Yellow flowers
The red setting sun! ~ Soseki Natsume

Come, what secret describes this scene?" "Enjoy everything around you, even if you've seen it a thousand times before?" She said it as lightly as she could, as was often the case around him. She never knew whether to treat his attention as lingering amusement or seriousness. His fingers touched her chin, lifting it softly. "Even should I see you a thousand times. Each time would be a new lure. ~ Anne Mallory

There were other Anti-Christs among the Nephites, but they were more military leaders than religious innovators ... they are all of one breed and brand; so nearly alike that one mind is the author of them, and that a young and underdeveloped, but piously inclined mind. The evidence I sorrowfully submit, points to Joseph Smith as their creator. It is difficult to believe that they are a product of history, that they came upon the scene separated by long periods of time, and among a race which was the ancestral race of the red man of America. ~ B. H. Roberts

..the following parable may be useful. Long ago, when shepherds wanted to see if two herds of sheep were isomorphic, they would look for an explicit isomorphism. In other words, they would line up both herds and try to match each sheep in one herd with a sheep in the other. But one day, along came a shepherd who invented decategorification. She realized one could take each herd and 'count' it, setting up an isomorphism between it and some set of 'numbers', which were nonsense words like 'one, two, three, . . . ' specially designed for this purpose. By comparing the resulting numbers, she could show that two herds were isomorphic without explicitly establishing an isomorphism! In short, by decategorifying the category of finite sets, the set of natural numbers was invented. According to this parable, decategorification started out as a stroke of mathematical genius. Only later did it become a matter of dumb habit, which we are now struggling to overcome by means of categorification. ~ John Baez

Yet it is the masculine values that prevail. Speaking crudely, football and sport are 'important'; the worship of fashion, the buying of clothes 'trivial'. And these values are inevitably transferred from life to fiction. This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room. A scene in a battle-field is more important than a scene in a shop - everywhere and much more subtly the difference of value persists. ~ Virginia Woolf

It is critical, therefore, in every new generation and setting to find ways to communicate the gospel clearly and strikingly, distinguishing it from its opposites and counterfeits. ~ Timothy Keller

What characterized the whole punk scene for me in 1977 was there was no racism or sexism. It was an anarchy of -isms, and a matter of abolishing it all. ~ Chrissie Hynde

I'm always excited to do the fight scenes. ~ Ming-Na Wen

Two things can make life meaningful: books and love ... I already have books. Now I am setting off in search of love. ~ Joel Dicker

It was fun. I'd never done anything like that. I'd never done any bi-sexual or lesbian scenes before, but it was really fun. ~ Megalyn Echikunwoke

With ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable ~ Thomas Fowell Buxton

Holy shit! Can we say unstable? Was I the only sane one around here? Well, I guess that really wasn't setting the standard very high. -Ember, Darkness Of Light ~ Stacey Marie Brown

Actors must practice restraint, else think what might happen in a love scene. ~ Cedric Hardwicke

You may have even commented on the surprising inappropriateness of such a murderous and bloody scene appearing in a children's book. It's fun to feel offended, isn't it? ~ Dav Pilkey

I'm actually a 'Witch' not Wiccan ... justa Witch. I started reading Tarot when I was 8 years old. I dabble in astrology, Candle Magick, gems/stone Magick and I mainly use herbs for cooking. But cooking is it's own Magick-when done right. Actually, when I colour Tarot ... I do use a form of Colour Magick..colours do influence mood ... so I conscienciously choose certain colours for certain scenes. ~ Holly Golightly

I began as a dramatist in the theater, so I'm always thinking about how a story moves, what it looks like, how to engage the senses, how dialogue sounds, what feels authentic and sounds real, what's funny, how to build distinctive and original characters - all the aspects of playwriting, scene-building, the architecture of dramatizing. ~ Adriana Trigiani

Today there is virtually a consensus... that Jesus came on the scene with an unheard of authority, with the claim of the authority to stand in God's place and speak to us and bring us to salvation. With regard to Jesus there are only two possible modes of behavior: either to believe that in him God encounters us or to nail him to the cross as a blasphemer. Tertium non datur. [There is no third way.]2 ~ William Lane Craig