A. S. Byatt Quotes

I couldn't tell you a good, bad or ugly pilot just from reading it, but I can tell you a character I want to play.

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.

I think good radio often uses the techniques of fiction: characters, scenes, a big urgent emotional question. And as in the best fiction, tone counts for a lot.

A good story is a good story, whatever the medium.

I wasn't interested in novelty. I was looking for good drama.

When you're not playing the hero of the story, then you have to know that you're always a foil for the good guy. I love playing that. I think that's always an interesting place to be.

I firmly believe that a story is only as good as the villain.

It's hard to write a good plot, it's very hard.

I feel like, sometimes, characters that are just good and nice can seem boring or uninteresting.

Fiction has a unique role in conveying Truth. In fact, only fiction that is Truth with a capital T is worthwhile.

Characters are the key to a good book. It took me several novels to comprehend that.

I approach serious subjects, and I like to have the good guys win and have the parents among the good guys.

I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty much what's going to happen at the end. But that doesn't mean you know what's going to happen in the middle. For me, it's that sense of what happens in the middle that's important.

I'm not good at dialogue. I'm not good at holding a mirror up at a real world. I'm not good at believable characterisation.

If the characters are not alive to me, it doesn't matter how good the sentences are. It just becomes all cake and no frosting.

A good opening and a good ending make for a good film provide they come close together.

If you look at children's stories in fairy tales, they're pretty brutal.

I try to tell a story that's good enough to win the right to integrate eternal themes into it. If it's poorly written or comes across as a sermon, then obviously you don't reach people, because they're aware that you're imposing something on a story that isn't innate to it.

I might not write fiction in the literary sense. But I write very well. My characters are good. My dialogue is good. And my stories are really involving.

I think it is nice for people to appreciate a slow-burning, beautiful story that makes you feel good when it is over.

I believe in three-act structure. When I say that to novel people, or people in the world of books, they go, 'Well, that's a film thing.' However, even a good joke has three acts.

With any good story, you need the adversary, the heroes and villains. You need a good mixture to make it work.

I wouldn't know a good script if it bit me in the face.

I just like a good story. I want the story to be good and I want the character to be different than the last one I played. That's not always possible, but that's what I want.

Lots of people can write a good first page but to sustain it, that's my litmus test. If I flip to the middle of the book and there's a piece of dialogue that's just outstanding, or a description, then I'll flip back to the first page and start it.