--- title: "2 Anecdote Quotes By Irving Howe" description: "2 Anecdote quotes by Irving Howe. Plus more from Irving Howe and more Anecdote sayings from other authors." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4c3/irving-howe-27693_flash-fiction_the-usual-short-story-cannot-have-a-comp_817250.jpg" --- > [“The usual short story cannot have a complex plot, but it often has a simple one resembling a chain with two or three links. The short short, however, doesn't as a rule have even that much - you don't speak…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/the-usual-short-story-cannot-have-a-complex-plot-but-it-often-has-a/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/4c3/irving-howe-27693_flash-fiction_the-usual-short-story-cannot-have-a-comp_817250.jpg) > [Sometimes ... the short short appears to rest on nothing more than a fragile anecdote which the writer has managed to drape with a quantity of suggestion. A single incident, a mere anecdote - these form the spine of the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/sometimes-the-short-short-appears-to-rest-on-nothing-more-than-a/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) [Image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/7d9/irving-howe-27693_anecdotes_sometimes-the-short-short-appears-to-res_944414.jpg) ## Other authors on Anecdote - [Weston Locher 6 quotes](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/anecdote/weston-locher/) ## More by Irving Howe > [One great flaw in the reforming passion is that in its eagerness to remedy social wrongs it tends to neglect, certainly to undervalue, the…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/one-great-flaw-in-the-reforming-passion-is-that-in-its-eagerness-to/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [Modernity consists in a revolt against the prevailing style, an unyielding rage against the official order.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/modernity-consists-in-a-revolt-against-the-prevailing-style-an/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [I was in a garden at the Rodin Museum. For a few minutes I was alone, sitting on a bench between two long hedges…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/i-was-in-a-garden-at-the-rodin-museum-for-a-few-minutes-i-was-alone/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [Imagination is not something apart and hermetic, not a way of leaving reality behind; it is a way of engaging reality.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/imagination-is-not-something-apart-and-hermetic-not-a-way-of-leaving/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [The most glorious vision of the intellectual life is still that which is loosely called humanist: the idea of a mind committed yet dispassionate,…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/the-most-glorious-vision-of-the-intellectual-life-is-still-that-which/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [Could we say that the short short is to other kinds of fiction somewhat as the lyric is to other kinds of poetry? The…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/could-we-say-that-the-short-short-is-to-other-kinds-of-fiction/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [“The usual short story cannot have a complex plot, but it often has a simple one resembling a chain with two or three links.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/the-usual-short-story-cannot-have-a-complex-plot-but-it-often-has-a/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [“There is utopia and utopia. The kind imposed by an elite in the name of a historical imperative—that utopia is hell. It must lead…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/there-is-utopia-and-utopia-the-kind-imposed-by-an-elite-in-the-name/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [Sometimes ... the short short appears to rest on nothing more than a fragile anecdote which the writer has managed to drape with a…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/sometimes-the-short-short-appears-to-rest-on-nothing-more-than-a/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [Comedy speaks for civilization; farce bears an ill-concealed, sometimes unconcealed animus against civilization. Often against civility too.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/comedy-speaks-for-civilization-farce-bears-an-ill-concealed-sometimes/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [Good readers make much out of little.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/good-readers-make-much-out-of-little/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/the-knowledge-that-makes-us-cherish-innocence-makes-innocence/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [The message of guidance that neither politics nor philosophy nor religion now seems able to provide, we look for in modern literature.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/the-message-of-guidance-that-neither-politics-nor-philosophy-nor/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [No one has ever seen the self. It has no visible shape, nor does it occupy measurable space. It is an abstraction, like other…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/no-one-has-ever-seen-the-self-it-has-no-visible-shape-nor-does-it/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) > [“There can't be much development of action or theme in such stories, but at least there is some. By contrast, in the short short…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/irving-howe/there-can-t-be-much-development-of-action-or-theme-in-such-stories/) [Irving Howe](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/irving-howe/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "ItemList", "@id": "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/anecdote/irving-howe/#itemlist", "name": "2 Anecdote Quotes By Irving Howe", "numberOfItems": 2, "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "item": { "@type": "Quotation", "text": "“The usual short story cannot have a complex plot, but it often has a simple one resembling a chain with two or three links. The short short, however, doesn't as a rule have even that much - you don't speak of a chain when there's only one link. ... Sometimes ... the short short appears to rest on nothing more than a fragile anecdote which the writer has managed to drape with a quantity of suggestion. A single incident, a mere anecdote - these form the spine of the short short. Everything depends on intensity, one sweeping blow of perception. In the short short the writer gets no second chance. Either he strikes through at once or he's lost. And because it depends so heavily on this one sweeping blow, the short short often approaches the condition of a fable. When you read the two pieces by Tolstoy in this book, or I.L. Peretz's 'If Not Higher,' or Franz Kafka's 'The Hunter Gracchus,' you feel these writers are intent upon 'making a point' - but obliquely, not through mere statement. What they project is not the sort of impression of life we expect in most fiction, but something else: an impression of an idea of life. Or: a flicker in darkness, a slight cut of being. The shorter the piece of writing, the more abstract it may seem to us. In reading Paz's brilliant short short we feel we have brushed dangerously against the sheer arbitrariness of existence; in reading Peretz's, that we have been brought up against a moral reflection on the nature of goodness, though a reflection hard merely to state. Could we say that the short short is to other kinds of fiction somewhat as the lyric is to other kinds of poetry? The lyric does not seek meaning through extension, it accepts the enigmas of confinement. It strives for a rapid unity of impression, an experience rendered in its wink of immediacy. And so too with the short short. ... Writers who do short shorts need to be especially bold. They stake everything on a stroke of inventiveness. Sometimes they have to be prepared to speak out directly, not so much in order to state a theme as to provide a jarring or complicating commentary. The voice of the writer brushes, so to say, against his flash of invention. And then, almost before it begins, the fiction is brought to a stark conclusion - abrupt, bleeding, exhausting. This conclusion need not complete the action; it has only to break it off decisively. Here are a few examples of the writer speaking out directly. Paz: 'The universe is a vast system of signs.' Kafka in 'First Sorrow': The trapeze artist's 'social life was somewhat limited.' Paula Fox: 'We are starving here in our village. At last, we are at the center.' Babel's cossack cries out, 'You guys in specs have about as much pity for chaps like us as a cat for a mouse.' Such sentences serve as devices of economy, oblique cues. Cryptic and enigmatic, they sometimes replace action, dialogue and commentary, for none of which, as it happens, the short short has much room. There's often a brilliant overfocussing. 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