John L'Heureux Quotes

#1. Sometimes, in that darkness, there is a single act of love, some selfless gesture, an aspiration, and we see that it's not been all waste, all hopeless, and we can ... well ... go on.

John L'Heureux

#2. There's something about a parenthesis in fiction that puts one off, saying, "It's me, moi, jumping in now."

John L'Heureux

#3. Uninvited criticism is insult.

John L'Heureux

#4. Using language like jungle growth isn't the solution to telling a story.

John L'Heureux

#5. Nothing on earth in fiction is less interesting than characters under the influence of alcohol.

John L'Heureux

#6. On the other hand, who would be a more dedicated gay-basher than a gay school board member? look at congress.

John L'Heureux

#7. Our salvation never comes in the form we would have chosen.

John L'Heureux

#8. Let good people sin. Give virtue to rotters.

John L'Heureux

#9. A story is about a single moment in a character's life when a definitive choice is made, after which nothing is the same.

John L'Heureux

#10. A short story is a writer's way of thinking through experience ... Journalism aims at accuracy, but fiction's aim is truth. The writer distorts reality in the interest of a larger truth.

John L'Heureux

#11. What a strange thing it is to recognize a sound like the shriek of a wounded animal, when you've never heard the shriek of a wounded animal.

John L'Heureux

#12. Obscenities are too often used for shock value, as a kind of shorthand for real expression of emotion. You've got to scale down your monstrosities. A scream is not a discovery.

John L'Heureux

#13. Plot does not simply move with time, but spreads out conceptually in metaphorical space.

John L'Heureux

#14. You must get beyond divertissement, sketch, anecdote, the interesting moment. You must get to the mystery of human personality. What is the line of the story that leads us to a point where we see or intuit something we haven't before?

John L'Heureux