dialogue techniques Quotes

The art of conversation lies in listening.

People love to talk but hate to listen.

When I was a young fellow, I used to learn the dialogue backwards. The point is that in a conversation between two people, you can't have already made the decisions about what you're gonna do. You gotta be very light on your feet. That leads you into areas where conversations can have a much bigger, grander meaning.

I do want to make it very convincing. And the best way to do that is to put most of it in dialogue.

On the whole, dialogue is the most difficult thing, without any doubt. It's very difficult, unfortunately. You have to detach yourself from the notion of a lifelike quality. You see, actually lifelike, tape-recorded dialogue like this has very little to do with good novel dialogue. It's a matter of getting that awful tyranny of mimesis out of your mind, which is difficult.

I'd be the first person to say I can't write dialogue. My dialogue is very utilitarian and is designed to move things forward. I'm not Shakespeare. It's not designed to be poetic.

Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I'd like to learn how to have a conversation.

The first thing you have to learn is how to conduct dialogue and how to make it productive.

The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.

In dialogue, there is opposition, yes, but no head-on collision. Smashing heads does not open minds.

For my students who are trying to learn the craft of writing in a writing class - contemporary literature is what's most useful.

I enjoy both TV writing and novel writing, and they are very similar. The goal is to entertain and amuse the audience, and I subscribe to this P.G. Wodehouse piece of advice: "Try to give pleasure with every sentence."