Sol Stein Quotes

On this page you can find the TOP of Sol Stein's best quotes! We hope you will find some sayings from Author Sol Stein's in our collection, which will inspire you to new achievements! There are currently 14 quotes on this page collected since October 13, 1926! Share our collection of quotes with your friends on social media so that they can find something to inspire them!
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  • A lawyer's job is to manipulate the skeletons in other people's closets.

    Jobs   Skeletons   People  
    Sol Stein (2005). “Other People”, p.168, iUniverse
  • 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.

    Writing   Views   Speech  
    Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.110, St. Martin's Press
  • Readers take in dialogue one thought at a time. A frequent mistake of beginners is to combine thoughts, which may be suitable for other forms of writing but not for dialogue. Another mistake is speechifying. Three sentences at a time is tops, yet many beginners write speeches that go on and on.

  • Most of the time, tough, combative, adversarial dialogue is much more exciting than physical action.

    Writing   Action   Tough  
  • A writer writes what other people only think.

    Sol Stein (2014). “How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them”, p.87, St. Martin's Press
  • The biggest difference between a writer and a would-be writer is their attitude toward rewriting. . . . Unwillingness to revise usually signals an amateur.

    Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.277, St. Martin's Press
  • Our instinct as human beings is to provide answers, to ease tension. As writers our job is the opposite, to create tension and not dispel it immediately.

    Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.106, St. Martin's Press
  • A reader's emotions can be sparked with few words. That's the power of dialogue.

    Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.113, St. Martin's Press
  • To create tension, dialogue needs to be stretched out. That is, characters should not be immediately responsive.

  • Dialogue is a lean language in which every word counts.

    Sol Stein (2014). “Stein On Writing: A Master Editor of Some of the Most Successful Writers of Our Century Shares His Craft Techniques and Strategies”, p.113, St. Martin's Press
  • Readers, transformed by film and TV, are used to seeing stories. The reading experience . . . is increasingly visual.

    Reading   Stories   Tvs  
  • 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.

    Book   Writing   Tired  
  • In our not-yet-acknowledged secret garden lie the seeds of some of our best not-yet-written stories

    Lying   Garden   Secret  
    Sol Stein (2014). “How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them”, p.68, St. Martin's Press
  • The expert magician seeks to deceive the mind, rather than the eye.

    Eye   Magic   Mind  
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We hope you have found the saying you were looking for in our collection! At the moment, we have collected 14 quotes from the Author Sol Stein, starting from October 13, 1926! We periodically replenish our collection so that visitors of our website can always find inspirational quotes by authors from all over the world! Come back to us again!
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