The Hidden Machinery Quotes

“Dialogue is a wolf in sheep’s clothing—often pretending to be woolly and vague, actually all teeth and meaning. Even”
― Margot Livesey, The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing

“I am using the phrase “the hidden machinery” to refer to two different aspects of novel making: on the one hand how certain elements of the text—characters, plot, imagery—work together to make an overarching argument; on the other how the secret psychic life of the author, and the larger events of his or her time and place, shape that argument. (p. 29)”
― Margot Livesey, The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing

“The pleasure of this kind of narrative is not that we think we are reading about the real world (although the story usually does map onto our world fairly closely), but rather that the wings of symmetry are unfolding around us; briefly we are on a planet where, as E.M. Forster says, there are no secrets and human behavior makes sense. I call this 'fiction.”
― Margot Livesey, The Hidden Machinery: Essays on Writing