Setting The Scene Quotes

I am developing new coping mechanisms for lost words and lost negatives, as here for instance: compensate by describing the episode instead. When something is lost, redirect energy, follow the derivé, the chance and flow of what life tosses us, and make something new instead.

Remember that I'm often struck by certain passages of descriptive writing, writing that is not about driving home a point but about providing detail, background, setting the scene (it's tempting to call this the stadium of writing). It has a "something from nothing" quality: a pleasurable experience has been had, and no one has paid a price. Remember that writing does not have to be torture (107). ~ Moyra Davey

He'd done his walls with paint from Holy Basil. God, I yearned for their colors. I hadn't been able to afford them myself but I knew their color chart like the back of my hand. His hall was done in Gangrene, his stairs in Agony and his living room
unless I was very much mistaken
in Dead Whale. Colors I personally very much approved of. ~ Marian Keyes

The elements of a good story are most definitely details, little bitty details. That does it, especially when you're describing, when you're setting the scene and everything. It's like you're painting a picture, so details are very important. Also, the music gotta be right. The music can really set the tone for the story and let you know what the story is gonna be about, but definitely, it's the vibe in the place where you at and the detail. ~ Big Boi

I would totally support a pond scene like the one in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, but only if you were stripped first."
He slid her a glance out of the corner of his eye. She was giving him a lascivious grin that made him feel like singing at the top of his lungs. "You have a smutty mind, Alice. It's one of the many things I admire in you. Unfortunately, we are in a holy place, and although I don't particularly hold strong religious feelings, I feel it would be insulting to the caretakers of this cathedral to give in to your lustful desires and engage in sex right her and now." He thought for a moment. "Although I have to admit it is a tempting thought ... ~ Katie MacAlister

We do not admit the authority of the church with respect to its pretended infallibility, its manufactured miracles, its setting itself up to forgive sins. It was by propagating that belief and supporting it with fire that she kept up her temporal power. ~ Thomas Paine

...and thinking how dreadfully familiar that scene had been, with Babamukuru condemning Nyasha to whoredom, making her a victim of here femaleness, just as I had felt victimised at home in the days when Nhamo went to school and I grew my maize. The victimisation, I saw was universal. It didn't depend on poverty, on lack of education or on tradition. It didn't depend on any of the things I thought it depended on. Men took it everywhere with them. Even heroes like Babamukuru did it. And that was the problem. ~ Tsitsi Dangarembga

Hounds and hearthstones, girl, haven't you ever heard a story about Koschei? He's only got the one. Act one, Scene one: pretty girl. Act one, Scene two: pretty girl gone! ~ Catherynne M Valente

That's where I'm comfortable - playing a jackass on the scene, rolling in with my pocket watch and my buffoon hairdo, with my shoes. ~ Alan Tudyk

The development of the proletarian elite does not take place in an academic setting. Rather, it is brought about by battles in the factories and unions, by disciplinary punishments and some very dirty fights within the parties and outside of them, by jail sentences and illegality. Students do not flock in large numbers there as they do to the lecture halls and laboratories of the bourgeoisie. The career of a revolutionary does not consists of banquets and honarary titles, of interesting research projects and professional salaries; more likely, it will acquaint them with misery, dishonory and jail and, at the end, uncertainty. These conditions are made bearable only by a super-human faith. Understandably, this way of life will not be the choice of those who are nothing more than clever. ~ Max Horkheimer

This isn't how it should be, God.

Thousands of graves marking thousands of lives--so much focus on death. Did the gravediggers spend their lives just serving the dead? How many Numbers ticked away for the sake of carving headstones no one would read?

As I stare at this scene, I decide I don't want a headstone when I die. I don't even want to be buried. I want to disappear--save that chunk of earth for people to live on. This land I stand on is worthless now. No one can build a house here. No one can plant gardens or start a new village. Is that what the people buried beneath me would have wanted?

Earth wasn't intended to hold only dead bodies.

I stand. God, I need to live. ~ Nadine Brandes

Samuel laughed out loud. You still haven't figured it out, have you, Mercy? He never was mad about the car. He was the first one at the scene of the accident. He thought you'd killed yourself. We all did. That was a pretty spectacular wreck. ~ Patricia Briggs

Humor [in a scene] is not jokes. It is that attitude toward being alive without which you would long ago have jumped off the 59th Street Bridge. ~ Michael Shurtleff

Pointing out the emotion in a scene is like laughing at your own jokes. ~ Diana Gabaldon

The Hall of Tra was cold and lightless. His wolf-eye caught the ghost radiation of barely smouldering firepits. In terms of heat and light, the Wolves were making no allowances for human tolerances of comfort. They had given him a pelt and an eye to see through the dark with. What more could he want? He realised he wasn't alone. The company was all around him. Their body heat was barely detectable, dimmer than the dull firepits. The Hall was a massive natural cavern, ragged and irregular, and the Astartes were ranged around it, huddled and coiled in their furs, as immobile as a sibling pack of predators, gone to ground overnight, dormant and pressed close for warmth. Faces cowled by animal skin hoods were watching his approach. There were occasional grumbles and murmurs, like animals growling in their sleep or tussling over bones. As his eye resolved the scene better, the Upplander saw some evidence of movement. He saw hands casually raise silver bowls and dishes so that men could sip black liquid from them. He saw hunched shapes engaged in the counter game, hneftafl, that the Upplander had seen Skarsi playing. ~ Dan Abnett

Like it or not, I'm here now, in the year 1Q84. The 1984 that I knew no longer exists. It's 1Q84 now. The air has changed, the scene has changed. ~ Haruki Murakami

Music's always part of my writing. I think all art is interconnected. You can't create or experience one without its influences bleeding into another. In my writing, music's mostly something that feeds my inspiration and mood while I'm writing, but it's also taught me how to score scenes and even novels. The rise and fall of the storyline echoes the flow of a good piece of music. ~ Charles De Lint

The sun is setting fast. The colors die. They shift from purple to dried blood, from nacre to bister, from cool dead grays to pigeon shit. ~ Henry Miller

A dinner party is the oldest experiment. Trap a bunch of souls in a room. Faces move like painted moons, rising and setting, as talk blows in from the east. The thunk and freckles of a hand slammed down on the table in laughter, the noise of a long night unscrolled like a map. Madeira and Roquefort. Paper towels for napkins. The maroon wall telephone rings: next round of folks on their way! ~ Jardine Libaire

We were the ones on scene when everything went down. We weren't better. We weren't worse. We were just the ones standing in the blast radius. ~ Mira Grant

I can't tell you how much we laughed on the set to have Alec Guinness in a scene with a big, furry dog that's flying a space ship. ~ Mark Hamill

My decisions determine my destination long before I ever get there. And once I do get there, I suddenly realize this is not the destination I had in mind because what I had in mind was the fantasy that my denial had created verses the reality my choices crafted. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

You must believe in your own instincts and your own instincts at any particular time and believe that they were the right ones for any given situation. So, there's no point ever of kind of regretting something because you can't properly remember the exact circumstances in which you were playing out this particular scene. You have to believe in your intuition and your instinct at that moment. ~ Dominic Cooper

In the last few decades entire new categories of waste have come to plague and menace the American scene. Pollution is growing at a rapid rate. Pollution destroys beauty and menaces health. It cuts down on efficiency, reduces property values and raises taxes. Almost all these wastes and pollutions are the result of activities carried on for the benefit of man. A prime national goal must be an environment that is pleasing to the senses and healthy to live in. Our Government is already doing much in this field. We have made significant progress. But more must be done. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson

In 'Taxi,' I kept doing the same scene for three years. I was underused. ~ Jeff Conaway

The purpose of setting communication principles is to build an effective digital workplace where collaboration and sharing are the norms. ~ Pearl Zhu

Perhaps some wine will wash things clean,' suggested Bugg.
'Won't hurt. Pour us some, please. You, guard, come and join us - standing there doing nothing must be a dreadful bore. No need to gape like that, I assure you. Doff that helm and relax - there's another guard just like you on the other side of that door, after all. Let him bear the added burden of diligence. Tell us about yourself. Family, friends, hobbies, scandals - '
'Sire,' warned Bugg.
'Or just join us in a drink and feel under no pressure to say anything at all. This shall be one of those interludes swiftly glossed over in the portentous histories of great and mediocre kings. We sit in the desultory aftermath, oblivious to omens and whatever storm waits behind yonder horizon. Ah, thank you, Bugg - my Queen, accept that goblet and come sit on my knee - oh, don't make that kind of face, we need to compose the proper scene. I insist and since I'm King I can do that, or so I read somewhere. Now, let's see . . . yes, Bugg, stand right over there - oh, massaging your brow is the perfect pose. And you, dearest guard - how did you manage to hide all that hair? And how come I never knew you were a woman? Never mind, you're an unexpected delight - ow, calm down, wife - oh, that's me who needs to calm down. Sorry. Women in uniforms and all that. Guard, that dangling helm is exquisite by the way, take a mouthful and do pass judgement on the vintage, yes, like that, oh, most perfect!
'Now, it's just occu ~ Steven Erikson

Preaching Christianity to skeptics without first setting out the praeambula fidei [preambles of faith], and then complaining when they don't accept it, is like yelling in English at someone who only speaks Chinese, and then dismissing him as a fool when he doesn't understand you. In both cases, while there is certainly a fool in the picture, it isn't the listener. ~ Edward Feser

You can't create a movie as you think about it. And what's in the scene is not what's being seen. A shot always means something other than what it is. All are vehicles. A landscape is just a vehicle. The viewer might think different things, and I'm not going to intervene. ~ Bruno Dumont

Actors can be very precious about their work and their scenes, but I think good actors have a strong understanding of narrative and are very often not as precious about that stuff. They just can't be because they understand what makes for a better film, and that it's the job of the actor to work toward that, and then if you want you can go to acting class or workshops. But making movies is not workshops. ~ Kristen Stewart

From exam grading to health education to professional training to democratic participation, paths towards self-realization and success in the world are often daunting and obscure: journeys only the privileged feel confident setting off along. ~ Tom Chatfield

Remember that old Disney movie, the cartoon with the dogs, Lady and the Tramp?" she said with a jerky laugh. "it's Jade's favorite of course. We've watched it a million times. This reminds me of that scene where they're eating spaghetti."
He raised his eyebrows. He knew exactly the scene. Both dogs both slurped the same piece and ended up kissing. ~ Roxanne Snopek

I was young and felt like it was opportunity 'cause they were moving units back then on the underground scene. ~ Young Buck

Psychopathic workers very often were identified as the source of departmental conflicts, in many cases, purposely setting people up in conflict with each other. "She tells some people one story, and then a totally different story to others. ~ Paul Babiak

Although signs may be found in everything that comes to us, as though a river at our doorstep carried these messages on its surface, the Quran (like other sacred books) speaks in terms of empirical experience, since it is intended to endure through the ages and cannot bind itself to the 'scientific' theories of any particular time. Its images are the phenomena of nature as they appear to us in our experience - the rising and setting of the sun, the domed sky above and the mountains, which are like weights set upon the earth. Scientific observations change according to the preconceptions of the observer and the instruments at his disposal, and the speculations which blinkered human minds construct on the basis of these observations change no less swiftly. But man's experience of the visual universe does not change. The sun 'rises' for me today as it 'rose' for the man of ten thousand years ago. ~ Charles Le Gai Eaton