Sarah Orne Jewett Quotes

The ideal, it seems to me, is to show things happening and allow the reader to decide what they mean.

I think readers' imaginations are far more powerful than anything you can put on a page and, therefore, can conjure up graphic images for themselves, which I think you just have to nudge them towards.

Anytime I feel like I am beginning to explain the plot or characters too much my stomach churns. I like stories that let the characters speak for themselves and don't give you all the information.

Make him [the reader] think the evil, make him think it for himself, and you are released from weak specifications.

As a writer, you paint strokes and leave suggestions so readers can create their own pictures. That allows you to know someone by a small action and it saves countless pages of explanation.

I never say what I mean, but I always manage to say something similar.

A discerning eye needs only a hint, and understatement leaves the imagination free to build its own elaborations.

In Japan they prefer the realistic style. They like answers and conclusions, but my stories have none. I want to leave them wide open to every possibility. I think my readers understand that openness.

I try to avoid describing one interpretation of my books. Of course I have an opinion. I have things I want to say, but I don't ever want to limit anybody, to have them say, 'Oh, he said this, so that's what it's about.' I'm happy people bring their own stuff to it.

What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers.

If I've vividly laid out the narrative, the reader will come to his own conclusions.

For me, the game would be to assume a very intelligent reader who can extrapolate a lot from a little. And that's become my definition of art; to get that pitch just right, where I can put a hint on page three, and the reader's ears go up a bit, as opposed to dropping it all on the first page.

I think once you write fiction, you put it out, and it can be interpreted in a variety of ways, some of which are going to be shocking to the writer.

You don't want to hit readers over the head like they're completely incapable of picking up on subtlety.

I can't control what a reader takes from a story.

In a graphic novel, you have to allow for a certain amount of freedom on the reader's part to experience it how they choose.

In entertainment, if you have a message in a film, no one wants to be spoon-fed the message. No one wants to be told how to feel. At least, I don't.

When you are describing, A shape, or sound, or tint; Don't state the matter plainly, But put it in a hint; And learn to look at all things, With a sort of mental squint.

The short story form allows evocation, suggestion, implication. Its potency often lies in what it does not say.

Always leave room for the reader to supply meanings.

I don't want to lose too much of the mystery by hammering every detail to death.

A true masterpiece does not tell everything.

I don't ever feel that it's necessary to say certain things. I think we can be very suggestive. I think we can allude to certain things.

And isn't it better really to leave things only hinted at?

The writer's job, after all, is not to dictate meaning, but to give the reader enough pieces to create his or her own satisfying meaning. The story is truly finished—and meaning is made—not when the author adds the last period, but when the reader enters the story and fills that little ambiguous space, completing the circuit, letting the power flow through.