F Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with F. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Fiction challenges us and works its miracles by placing us in the skin of another human being and teaching us empathy.”
“Fiction comes in all shapes and sizes. Secrets,lies,stories. We all tell them. Sometimes,because we hope to entertain. Sometimes,because we need to distract. And sometimes, because we have to.”
Source: The Storyteller
“Fiction creating reality.”
Source: Conversations with Paul Auster
“Fiction demands structures and recognizable shapes. Big surprises only draw attention to the writer's hand.”
“Fiction does not invent out of a vacuum, but it invents; and what it invents is, first, the fabric and cadence of language, and then a slant of idea that sails out of these as a fin lifts from the sea.”
Source: The Din in the Head
“Fiction does not spring into the world fully grown, like Athena. It is the process of writing and rewriting that makes a fiction original, if not profound.”
“Fiction doesn't appeal to me because it can describe physical appearances exhaustively or because it can offer access to the inner depths of an array of human characters - neither that kind of "realism" of bodily surfaces nor of individual psychologies seems particularly realistic to me.”
“Fiction doesn’t tell us something we don’t know, it tells us something we know but don’t know that we know.”
“Fiction either moves mountains or it's boring; it moves mountains or it sits on its ass.”
“Fiction gives us a reach into the lives of individuals that would otherwise be but a closed door. If we are gifted with a desire to tell tales, then we should tell them . . . if only to reach but a few.”
“Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us.”
“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.”
Source: The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction
“Fiction---good fiction, anyway---is dream made flesh, given purpose and drive, and set on a quest to show us the best in us and to give us the power and the tools to dream beyond reality's 'merely good enough' to a vision of what is truly great...
...and then to give us the stories of men and women of character who in turn inspire those of us who dare to reach for the truly great within ourselves.
THAT is why you write fiction.”
“fiction happens in the belly, it doesn't happen in the brain.”
“Fiction happens in the womb. It doesn't get processed in the mind until you do the editing.”
“Fiction harmless? Look at religion. Fiction harmless? Look at the oppressed masses content with their lot because they have embraced the lies imposed on them. History itself is just a fiction-a fiction with an army. And reality? Reality is a fiction with an unlimited budget. That's what it is. And how is reality funded? With yet another fiction: money. Money is at the core of it all. An illusion we've all agreed to support. Unanimously. We can differ on other matters, like creed or political affiliations, but we all agree on the fiction of money and that this abstraction represents concrete goods. Any goods. Look it up. It's all in Marx. Money, he says, is not one thing. It is, potentially, all things. And for this reason it is unrelated to all things.”
Source: Trust
“Fiction has a unique role in conveying Truth. In fact, only fiction that is Truth with a capital T is worthwhile.”
“Fiction has always been a thorn in my side, because I've always wanted to be a writer but I can't seem to really do it.”
“Fiction has always evoked pictures and provoked ideas and sounds in my mind.”
“Fiction has been maligned for centuries as being "false," "untrue," yet good fiction provides more truth about the world, about life, and even about the reader, than can be found in non-fiction.”
“Fiction has consisted either of placing imaginary characters in a true story, which is the Iliad, or of presenting the story of an individual as having a general historical value, which is the Odyssey.”
“Fiction has subversive potential. People let it into their minds, like the Trojan Horse. They don't know what's inside. You hook them with the story, and God can work below the level of their consciousness. Fiction can be propaganda for evil or convey a theme that impacts people for good.”
“Fiction has this special power. It has a power to clarify, to galvanize, to prophesy, and warn.”
“Fiction helps me to reconnect with the true, deep weirdness inherent in everyday reality, in our dealings with one another, in just being alive.”
“Fiction, if done right, can bridge cultural divides. Stories can be a footpath for a reader to step into another land and view its indigenous practices and beliefs through a local lens, instead of a telescope.”
“Fiction, in a less direct way, will teach me, teach me things I would never learn had I not opened myself to them in story.”
“Fiction intended to please, should resemble truth as much as possible.”
“Fiction is a blessing to those of us who suffer from mental illness; I'm sure many would agree. To be able to escape into the minds and hearts of other people, is such a uniquely thrilling experience, that everyone should indulge in this freedom as often as possible. It will not only expand your mind in what is possible, but your heart as well, growing empathy for those who live lives so different from your own.”
Source: With a Reckless Abandon
“Fiction is a branch of neurology”
“Fiction is a branch of neurology: the scenarios of nerve and blood vessels are the written mythologies of memory and desire.”
“Fiction is a bridge to the truth that journalism can't reach.”
“Fiction is a great combination between experience and imagination.”
“Fiction is a kind of compassion-generating machine that saves us from sloth. Is life kind or cruel? Yes, Literature answers. Are people good or bad? You bet, says Literature. But unlike other systems of knowing, Literature declines to eradicate one truth in favor of another.”
“Fiction is a particular kind of rhetoric, a way of thinking that I think can be useful in your life. It asks you to image the world through someone else's eyes, and it allows you to try to empathize with situations that you haven't actually experienced.”
“Fiction is a particularly effective way for strangers to connect across time and distance”
“Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.”
Source: Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature
“Fiction is a place where people can meet, where they take the time to very seriously examine and think about the experiences of other people and about the sorts of moral decisions those characters are making.”
“Fiction is a potent agent for good--in the hands of the good.”
“FICTION is a series of unintended coincidence,confabulation,and quasi-lucid lying made plausible enough for an author and a reader to cohabitate for a secret, brief and sinful affair. Nothing is real.Except imagination~with a pinch of perception, and a dash of collusion used as the Clabber.
Be So Advised.”
Source: The Clabber Grrrl's Retreat: A Lurid Tale of Exotic Reptiles, Bloody Murder, and the Fine Art of Baking
“Fiction is a solution, the best solution, to the problem of existential solitude.”
Source: Farther Away: Essays
“Fiction is a sort of inter-human magic, allowing you to travel into a scene and feel it tingle on your skin.”
“Fiction is a very powerful tool for teaching history. The Philippines was the first Iraq, the first Vietnam, the first Afghanistan, in the sense that it was the United States initial or baptismal experience in nation-building.”
“Fiction is a way of exploring possibilities present but undreamt of in the living of a single life.”
Source: Selected Stories
“Fiction is a web of lies that attempts to entangle the truth. And autobiography may well be the reverse: data tricked up and rearranged to invent a fictive self.”
“Fiction is a wonderful home for the reach of the mind.”
“Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you.”
Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose
“Fiction is about feeling, which is to say that short stories are about all of us.”
“Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep the reader interested ...)”
“Fiction is about intimacy with characters, events, places.”
“Fiction is about stuff that's screwed up.”