#theme

With all the weird surroundings of outer space the basic underlying theme of the show is a philosophical approach to man's relationship to woman. There are both sexes in the crew, in fact, the first officer is a woman. ↗

— Jeffrey Hunter

#basic #both #crew #fact #first

A novel's whole pattern is rarely apparent at the outset of writing, or even at the end; that is when the writer finds out what a novel is about, and the job becomes one of understanding and deepening or sharpening what is already written. That is finding the theme. ↗

— Diane Johnson

#already #apparent #becomes #deepening #end

Any material may be used but the theme is the same and the response is the same for all artwork... we all have the same concern, but the artist must know exactly what the experience is. He must pursue the truth relentlessly. ↗

— Agnes Martin

#artist #artwork #concern #exactly #experience

I always tell my students, about the biggest baddest things in life you must try to write small and light, save the big writing for the unexpected tiny thing that always makes or breaks a story. ↗

— Pam Houston

#story #themes #unexpected #writing #life

You can't tell any kind of a story without having some kind of a theme, something to say between the lines. ↗

— Robert Wise

#between #having #kind #lines #say

A book isn't a single, static thing with one unarguable meaning. Each reader who comes to it brings his own special knowledge, habits and attitudes. Each reader reads a different book. Each reader imagines a different story. A few years ago, for instance, a friend of my mother's sent me a copy of a test on Rite of Passage that she had given her students. The first question read: "True or False? The theme of Rite of Passage is..." I can't tell you what the presumed themed was, but I can tell you that I didn't recognize it. Beads of sweat leaped out of my forehead. After two more questions, I had to put the test aside. I didn't know the "right" answers. ↗

— Alexei Panshin

#literature #themes #attitude