Ross Bennett

“There was a fellow I stayed with once in Warwickshire who farmed his own land, but was otherwise quite steady.  Should never have suspected him of having a soul, yet not very long afterwards he eloped with a lion-tamer's widow and set up as a golf-instructor somewhere on the Persian Gulf; dreadfully immoral, of course, because he was only an indifferent player, but still, it showed imagination.  His wife was really to be pitied, because he had been the only person in the house who understood how to manage the cook's temper, and now she has to put "D.V." on her dinner invitations. ”
― Saki, Classic British Fiction: 7 books by Saki (H.H. Munro) in a single file, with active toc

“Of course, you can catch them and sort them and place them in alphabetical order in dictionaries. But words do not live in dictionaries; they live in the mind. If you want proof of this, consider how often in moments of emotion when we most need words we find none. Yet there is the dictionary; there at our disposal are some half-a-million words all in alphabetical order. But can we use them? No, because words do not live in dictionaries, they live in the mind. Look again at the dictionary.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Complete Works of Virginia Woolf

“There are many ways to define story. Story is character. Story is conflict. Story is narrative tension. Story is thematic resonance. Story is plot. Trouble is, all of these are partially correct, while none of them, when viewed as isolated definitions, are completely correct. Even if you combine a few of them, they still fall short of expressing the essence of a great story. Without that essence, what you have is a kitchen table full of ingredients waiting for a recipe that allows them to become a delicious sum in excess of their individual parts. That turns your story into a literary feast.”
― Larry Brooks, Story Engineering

“WHICH CORE COMPETENCY COMES FIRST? To answer that one, you need to understand that the Six Core Competencies break down into two categories: the four basic elements of the story, the two narrative skills required to effectively implement them.”
― Larry Brooks, Story Engineering