Best Fiction Writers Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“When I have a writing workshop, I like to have people that are anthropologists and people who are poking around in other fields, I like to have them all in the same workshop, and not worry about genre. I like to mix it up, because the kind of comments you can get from a fiction writer about your poetry are going to be very different than what you'll get from a poet. Or the comments you'll get from a filmmaker about your performance are going to be very different. My writing workshop is about mixing it up, cross-pollinating, not only in genres but in occupations.”

“I don't think the function of writing, at least for me as a fiction writer, is to say to people, "Here's the answer." It's not an op-ed.”

People Thinking Writing Answers Fiction Function Fiction Writers

Author:Mohsin Hamid

“A lot of the despair we feel watching the news every day flows from our sense of helplessness, and as a fiction writer you get to control things, if only on the page. You get to run the show. You can right wrongs, bring departed loved ones back to life, even take vengeance on God, if that's your thing.”

Ifs Feels Shows Running Fiction Despair News Pages Flow Loved Ones Vengeance Helplessness Fiction Writers Departed

Author:Ron Currie Jr.

“My motto is: write about anything you bloody well like; just make sure you do it effectively. We've all had all the emotions, the rest is research and that leap which some can do and others cannot - it's not really something you can learn, otherwise all academics of literature would be wonderful fiction writers.”

Writing Wells Would Be Literature Can Do Emotion Fiction Wonderful Research Leap Bloody Motto Fiction Writers My Motto

Author:Suhayl Saadi

“Fiction is in danger of becoming a kind of poetry. Only other poets read it. Only other fiction writers care about it.”

Kind Care Fiction Danger Poet Becoming Fiction Writers

Author:John Updike

“I think it is our job, as writers, to be epic. Epic and tiny at the same time. If you're going to be a fiction writer, why not take on something that means something. In doing this, you must understand that within that epic structure it is the tiny story that is possibly more important.”

Ifs Thinking Mean Important Stories Jobs Fiction Structure Tiny Why Not Epic Fiction Writers

Author:Colum McCann

“As a fiction writer you train yourself to think about situations subjectively. I don't really care for narratives that are just A, B, C, D, and then E. I like the aura that fiction has, how it can conjure up dream imagery. It's a sort of emotional speculation that you can shape and work with.”

Thinking Dream Care Fiction Situation Emotional Shapes Train Narrative Speculation Imagery Fiction Writers Auras

Author:Oscar Hijuelos

“If I write a paragraph and I don't get a certain lift from it, if I don't feel connected to it emotionally, then it's dead to me. When I'm reading other fiction writers, if I don't get any emotional investment from the writer, if it's just intellectual or clever - you know, most writing that passes as deep is just clever - I don't feel any connection.”

Ifs Knows Feels Writing Certain Reading Fiction Emotional Intellectual Connections Investment Connected Clever Lifts Paragraph Fiction Writers Emotional Investment

Author:Oscar Hijuelos

“Incidentally, I am intrigued by how many European and Latin American writers expressed their political views in the columns they routinely wrote or write in the popular press, like Saramago, Vargas Llosa, and Eco. This strikes me as one way of avoiding opinionated fiction, and allowing your imagination a broader latitude. Similarly, fiction writers from places like India and Pakistan are commonly expected to provide primers to their country's histories and present-day conflicts. But we haven't had that tradition in Anglo-America.”

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.”

Life Writing Truth Beautiful Lying Fiction Bad Ass Fiction Writing Fiction Writers Writing Fiction Reading And Writing Writers Reading Reading Writing Realistic Fiction

Book:Danse Macabre

Source: Danse Macabre

“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”

“I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”

Writing Humans Emotion Swings Writing Songs Fiction Writers Written Word Writing By Writers Human Emotions Swirls Story Writing Writing Stories Inspiration To Write Writing Words Writing Voice

Book:The dangerous summer

Source: The dangerous summer

“It seems that the fiction writer has a revolting attachment to the poor, for even when he writes about the rich, he is more concerned with what they lack than with what they have.”

Writing Seems Poor Fiction Rich Concerned Attachment Fiction Writers

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end.”

Writing Ends Difficult Fiction Fronts Figures Shapes Satisfying Non Fiction Fiction Writers Refining

Author:Chaim Potok

“It cannot be said often enough that science fiction as a genre is incredibly educational - and I'm speaking the written science fiction, not 'Star Trek.' Science fiction writers tend to fill their books if they're clever with little bits of interesting stuff and real stuff.”

Ifs Littles Said Book Real Enough Stars Stuff Bits Interesting Fiction Written Little Bit Science Fiction Educational Clever Genre Fiction Writers Genre Is Real Stuff Interesting Stuff

Author:Terry Pratchett

“Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.”

Source: Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage

“I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers pay to the formal aspects of their work.”

Writing Trying Littles Pay Attention Fiction Conscious Aspect Boundaries Formal Non Fiction Fiction Writing Fiction Writers

Author:Alain de Botton

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

Inspirational Writing Reality Written Drunk Great Writers Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Writing By Writers Young Writers Inspiration To Write Inspiring Writing Art Of Writing Artists And Writers Writing Voice

Author:Ray Bradbury

“My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see.”

Feels Writing Trying Written Achieve Tasks Power Of Words Fiction Writers Written Word Short Writing

Author:Joseph Conrad

“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”

Writing Book Lasts Adventure Masters Monsters Tyrants Toys Phases Amusement Mistress Writing A Book Servitude Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Fling Writing Fiction Writing By Writers

Book:Winston Churchill, His Wit and Wisdom: Selections from His Works and Speeches

Source: Winston Churchill, His Wit and Wisdom: Selections from His Works and Speeches

“Outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters' theses.”

Writing Lasts Wish Fiction Masters Resources Outlines Fiction Writers Thesis

Author:Stephen King

“Here's a quick rule of thumb: Don't annoy science fiction writers. These are people who destroy entire planets before lunch. Think of what they'll do to you.”

People Thinking Life Inspirational Funny Fiction Planets Science Fiction Lunch Annoying Thumbs Fiction Writers

Author:John Scalzi

“Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.”

“Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. ...Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about.”

People Knows World Important Ideas Done Literature Fun Fiction Talking Civilization Science Fiction World History Fiction Writers Birthing

Author:Ray Bradbury

“I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.”

Writing Sound My Own Ears Fingers Refuse Fiction Writing Funny Life Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Novel Writing Irritated Writing Fiction Writing By Writers Violinist Creativity And Writing

Author:Gustave Flaubert

“You can, in short, lead the life of the mind, which is, despite some appalling frustrations, the happiest life on earth. And one day, in the thick of this, approaching some partial vision, you will (I swear) find yourself on the receiving end of - of all things - an "idea for a story," and you will, God save you, start thinking about writing some fiction of your own. Then you will understand, in what I fancy might be a blinding flash, that all this passionate thinking is what fiction is about, that all those other fiction writers started as you did, and are laborers in the same vineyard.”

“Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but that's the only way you can do anything really good.”

“There's no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in California who couldn't write.”

People Writing Written Block California Confusing Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Writing Fiction Writer's Block Writing By Writers Creativity And Writing Writing From Famous Authors

Author:Terry Pratchett

“In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov treaty, the second-best science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fiction writer. [dedication to Isaac Asimov from Arthur C. Clarke in his book Report on Planet Three]”

Book Three Term Fiction Planets Science Fiction Reports Dedication Treaties Arthur Fiction Writers Isaac Second Best Best Science

Author:Arthur C. Clarke

“There's a certain grain of stupidity that the writer of fiction can hardly do without, and this is the quality of having to stare, of not getting the point at once. The longer you look at one object, the more of the world you see in it; and it's well to remember that the serious fiction writer always writes about the whole world.”

World Writing Wells Looks Whole Remember Certain Fiction Quality Objects Serious Stupidity Whole World Crafts Staring Grain Fiction Writers

Book:Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

Source: Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

“My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.”

“I'm in love. And I like how that feels. And I hate how that feels. Because love is an invention of fiction writers.”

Feels Hate Love Is Fiction I Hate Invention Fiction Writers

Author:Ellen Hopkins

“Most books about writing are filled with bullshit. Fiction writers, present company included, don’t understand very much about what they do—not why it works when it’s good, not why it doesn’t when it’s bad.”

Writing Book Fiction Company Filled Bullshit Fiction Writers

Book:On writing: a memoir of the craft

Source: On writing: a memoir of the craft

“Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.”

“And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.”

Writing Firsts Doe Asks Teach Alive Privilege Writing Life Fiction Writers

Book:Zen in the Art of Writing

Source: Zen in the Art of Writing

“Being a fiction writer is really like being an actor, because if you're going to write convincingly it has to sound right and play right. The only way that works is to emotionally and technically act out and see the scene you're in. There's no better job in the world, because when I sit down at that computer I'm the world's best forensics expert, if that's what I'm writing about that day. Or I'm some crazed psycho running down a dark alley. Or I'm a gorgeous woman looking to find a man that night. Whatever! But I'm all of those things, every day. How can you beat that?”

“As a writer one doesn’t belong anywhere. Fiction writers, I think, are even more outside the pale, necessarily on the edge of society. Because society and people are our meat, one really doesn’t belong in the midst of society. The great challenge in writing is always to find the universal in the local, the parochial. And to do that, one needs distance.”

People Thinking Needs Writing Challenges Fiction Universal Distance Edges Locals Meat Midst Pale Fiction Writers

Author:William Trevor

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.”

“It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.”

Source: Faulkner at West Point

“It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.”

“Well you can't believe everything you read. After all, by definition, fiction writers lie for a living.”

Believe Wells Lying Fiction Definitions Fiction Writers

Author:Janette Rallison

“I've always loved science fiction. I think the smartest writers are science fiction writers dealing with major things.”

Thinking Fiction Majors Science Fiction Presses Interviews Fiction Writers

Author:Walter Mosley

“By his very profession, a serious fiction writer is a vendor of the sensuous particulars of life, a perceiver and handler of things. His most valuable tools are his sense and his memory; what happens in his mind is primarily pictures.”

Mind Happens Memories Fiction Serious Tools Valuable Profession Fiction Writers Sensuous Vendors

Book:On Teaching and Writing Fiction

Source: On Teaching and Writing Fiction

“If poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world, science fiction writers are its court jesters. We are Wise Fools who can leap, caper, utter prophecies, and scratch ourselves in public. We can play with Big Ideas because the garish motley of our pulp origins make us seem harmless.”

Ifs World Ideas Play Bigs Seems Fiction Wise Poet Fool Court Science Fiction Leap Prophecy Scratches Legislators Fiction Writers Big Ideas Pulp Jester Court Jester Capers

Author:Bruce Sterling

“Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.”

Knows Fiction Fiction Writers Credible

Author:John le Carre

“Science fiction [is] the kind of writing that prepares us for the necessary mutations brought about in society from an ever changing technological world and as a result. The mainstream hasn’t excluded SF; the mainstream has excluded itself. No one told Jules Verne he was a science fiction writer, but he invented the 20th century.”

World Writing Kind Results Fiction Century Science Fiction Mainstream Technological 20th Century Excluded Fiction Writers Mutation

Author:Walter Mosley

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”

“I have been successful probably because I have always realized that I knew nothing about writing and have merely tried to tell an interesting story entertainingly.”

Writing Has Beens Stories Interesting Successful Doubt Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Writing Fiction Writing By Writers Story Writing Writing Stories Creativity And Writing Story Writers Interesting Stories Successful Writing

Author:Edgar Rice Burroughs

“A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.”

Men Writing Interest Fellows Fellow Man Fiction Writing Fiction Writers Foibles

Author:Joseph Conrad

“Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything.”

Knows Writing Fiction Science Fiction Sorry Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Fiction Writers Writing By Writers I Am Sorry Am Sorry Creativity And Writing Writing From Famous Authors Writing Short Short Writing

Book:I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

Source: I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon

Fiction Writers Quotes

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Fiction Writers Quotes