“Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book.”
— Mavis Gallant
“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”
— Lorrie Moore
“Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and other dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner.”
— Neil Gaiman
“I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.”
— Andre Dubus
“When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you.”
— George Saunders
“A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.”
— David Sedaris
“I want my stories to be something about life that causes people to say, not, oh, isn’t that the truth, but to feel some kind of reward from the writing, and that doesn’t mean that it has to be a happy ending or anything, but just that everything the story tells moves the reader in such a way that you feel you are a different person when you finish.”
— Alice Munro
“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.”
— Henry David Thoreau
“We get so many people saying short fiction is not economical, that it doesn’t sell; but there are so many of us enjoying writing it and reading it. So it’s wonderful to be around people who love short fiction too – it’s like hanging around with my tribe.”
