Famous quotes containing the words plot, twist, surprise and/or mechanics:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“[My father] was serious;Mhe was all uniformity;Mhe was systematical, and, like all systematick reasoners, he would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture every thing in nature to support his hypothesis.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Your discovery of the contradiction caused me the greatest surprise and, I would almost say, consternation, since it has shaken the basis on which I intended to build my arithmetic.... It is all the more serious since, with the loss of my rule V, not only the foundations of my arithmetic, but also the sole possible foundations of arithmetic seem to vanish.”
—Gottlob Frege (1848–1925)
“It is only the impossible that is possible for God. He has given over the possible to the mechanics of matter and the autonomy of his creatures.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)