Best Fiction Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“In really, really good science fiction the line between the science and the fiction is blurry.”

Lines Fiction Science Fiction Blurry Good Science

“Expressing political opinion can be a powerful way to establish a character's voice when writing fiction.”

Way Writing Character Political Voice Powerful Fiction Opinion Writing Fiction Political Opinions

“People really want to believe that there is no fiction. I think they find it much easier to imagine that novelists are writing memoirs, writing about their lives, because it's difficult to conceive that there's a great imaginary life in which you can participate.”

People Thinking Want Writing Believe Difficult Fiction Imagine Easier Memoir Novelists Imaginary Imagine That Imaginary Life

Author:Mark Leyner

“If you take 2001: A Space Odyssey as an example of somebody who creates a new language in film by what he was able to accomplish with art direction, photography, lighting, etc., it is still a gold standard for science fiction.”

“I learned a lot about morality from fiction, from movies.”

Fiction Morality

Author:Rob Morrow

“The 'interactive fiction' format hasn't changed in any fundamental way since the early 1970s, in the same way that the format of the novel hasn't since 1700.”

Way Fiction Novel Changed Fundamentals Format Interactive

Author:Graham Nelson

“Many Scandinavian writers who had made their name in literary fiction felt they wanted to have a go at the crime novel to show they could compete with the best. If Salman Rushdie had been Norwegian, he would definitely have written at least one thriller.”

Ifs Made Shows Wanted Names Felt Fiction Novel Written Crime Thrillers Norwegians Scandinavians Scandinavia Crime Novels Rushdie

Author:Jo Nesbo

“The pace of Swedish crime fiction is slower - Stieg Larsson's the exception. And I think we use the environment more.”

Thinking Use Fiction Environment Crime Exception Pace Crime Fiction Swedish

Author:Camilla Lackberg

“Scandinavian crime fiction has become a great success all across the world and rightfully so. Sjowall and Wahloo ushered in a whole generation of Swedish crime writers, many of whom are now available in English.”

World Whole Fiction Generations Crime Available Crime Fiction Great Success Swedish Scandinavians Scandinavia

Author:Camilla Lackberg

“Obviously any fiction is going to be a combination of what is invented, what is overheard, what is experienced, what is experienced by people close to you, what you are told, what you have read, all mixed together into this kind of soup which, like any good soup, at the end you cannot really distinguish the ingredients.”

People Kind Ends Together Fiction Combination Ingredients Soup

Author:David Leavitt

“Don't get me wrong, I love literary fiction. It's faux literary fiction I can't stand.”

I Can Fiction Faux

Author:Dennis Lehane

“So much of contemporary crime fiction is painful to read and obsessed with violence, particularly against women, and I can't read that.”

I Can Fiction Violence Crime Painful Contemporary Obsessed Crime Fiction

Author:Donna Leon

“I think every fiction writer, to a certain extent, is a schizophrenic and able to have two or three or five voices in his or her body. We seek, through our profession, to get those voices onto paper.”

Thinking Two Body Able Certain Three Voice Fiction Five Paper Profession Fiction Writers Schizophrenic

Author:Ridley Pearson

“I had been writing fiction since I was in eighth grade, because I loved it.”

Writing Fiction Grades Writing Fiction Eighth Grade

Author:Thomas Perry

“It's important, I think, for a writer of fiction to maintain an awareness of the pace and shape of the book as he's writing it. That is, he should be making an object, not chattering.”

Thinking Should Writing Important Book Fiction Awareness Objects Shapes Pace

Author:Thomas Perry

“Right from the very beginning, I knew I wanted to write palpably Scottish fiction.”

Writing Wanted Fiction Scottish

Author:Ian Rankin

“I'm not writing great literature. I'm writing commercial fiction for people to enjoy the stories and to like the characters.”

People Writing Character Stories Literature Enjoy Fiction Great Literature

Author:Kathy Reichs

“One of the surprising things I hadn't expected when I decided to write crime fiction is how much you are expected to be out in front of the public. Some writers aren't comfortable with that. I don't have a problem with that.”

Writing Problem Fiction Fronts Crime Comfortable Decided Expected Surprising Crime Fiction Surprising Things

Author:Kathy Reichs

“I don't actually have a one wellspring of inspiration. Though I'm most often inspired while reading - both fiction and nonfiction.”

Inspiration Reading Fiction Inspired Nonfiction Wellspring Fiction And Nonfiction

Author:James Rollins

“Fiction writing was in my blood from a very young age, but I never considered writing as a real career. I thought you had to have some literary pedigree to be a successful author, the son of Hemingway or Fitzgerald.”

Writing Real Age Young Fiction Careers Successful Blood Son Young Age Fiction Writing Pedigree

Author:James Rollins

“To newspapers and publishing houses I urge the use of fact over fiction, freedom of the press, and responsibility at all times.”

Facts Use House Fiction Responsibility Presses Newspapers All Time Urges Publishing Freedom Of The Press Publishing House

Author:Joely Richardson

“'The Wire' really drew on a lot of real-life situations and real-life organizations - it created fiction to make a social statement about reality.”

Real Reality Social Fiction Situation Organization Real Life Statements Wire

Author:Lance Reddick

“Furthermore, even if ideas were gettable - say, stacked in a secluded cave like the Dead Sea scrolls - I wouldn't go there. An 'idea,' especially one adhered to from start to finish, can be disastrous for a compelling piece of fiction.”

Ifs Ideas Fiction Pieces Sea Compelling Caves Secluded

Author:Ron Rash

“Short fiction is the medium I love the most, because it requires that I bring everything I've learned about poetry - the concision, the ability to say something as vividly as possible - but also the ability to create a narrative that, though lacking a novel's length, satisfies the reader.”

Ability Fiction Novel Reader Mediums Narrative I've Learned Length Lacking

Author:Ron Rash

“Now, being a science fiction writer, when I see a natural principle, I wonder if it could fail.”

Ifs Natural Fiction Wonder Principles Failing Science Fiction Fiction Writers

Author:Rudy Rucker

“When I write my books, actually I'm known for very logical rule-based magic systems. I write with one foot in fantasy and one foot in science fiction.”

Writing Book Fiction Known Fantasy Magic Feet Science Fiction Logical

Author:Brandon Sanderson

“A very powerful theme in fiction is that of loss.”

Loss Powerful Fiction Theme Very Powerful

Author:Alexander McCall Smith

“Any author of fiction will tell you that characters don't need to be told what to do.”

Needs Character Fiction

Author:Alexander McCall Smith

“I'm able to separate fiction and reality. I guess it remains to be seen if other people are.”

People Ifs Reality Able Fiction Remains Fiction And Reality

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“I finally decided one day, reading science fiction magazines of the time, I could do at least as well as some of these people are doing. So I finally made a serious effort.”

People Wells Made Reading Literature Effort Fiction Serious One Day Decided Science Fiction Magazines

Author:Fred Saberhagen

“There's a big overlap with the people you meet at the fantasy and science fiction cons.”

People Bigs Fiction Fantasy Science Fiction

Author:Fred Saberhagen

“I think in our time, you know, so much of the information we get is pre-polarized. Fiction has a way of reminding us that we actually are very similar in our emotions and our neurology and our desires and our fears, so I think it's a nice way to neutralize that polarization.”

Thinking Knows Way Desire Emotion Fiction Nice Information Our Time Reminding Neurology Polarization

Author:George Saunders

“If you think of a work of fiction as a kind of scale model of the world, then the positive valences - where things turn out better than you thought they would - ought to be in there somewhere, too.”

Ifs Thinking World Kind Turns Fiction Ought Models Scales Better Than You

Author:George Saunders

“In [writing] fiction, every sentence is its own reward.”

Writing Fiction Rewards Sentences Writing Fiction

Author:Amy Tan

“Fiction writers are strange beasts. They are, like all writers, observers first and foremost. Everything that happens to and around them is potential material for a story, and they look at it that way.”

Way Writing Firsts Looks Stories Happens Fiction Strange Materials Beast Observers Fiction Writers

Book:Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life

Source: Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life

“And I do think that great fiction, even when it's comedic, has an urgency or an inevitability to it, a sense that the writer absolutely had to write this particular story in this way.”

Thinking Way Writing Stories Fiction Particular Urgency Inevitability Comedic

Author:Karen Russell

“It means that no matter what you write, be it a biography, an autobiography, a detective novel, or a conversation on the street, it all becomes fiction as soon as you write it down.”

Writing Mean Matter Literature Fiction Novel Streets Conversation No Matter What Autobiography Biographies Detectives Detective Fiction

Author:Guillermo Cabrera Infante

“The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it's about and why you're doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising ("but of course that's why he was doing that, and that means that...") and it's magic and wonderful and strange.”

“Would-be novelists need to bring equal parts arrogance and ignorance to the task before them. The arrogance is almost self-explanatory. Walk into any bookstore or library, calculate how many lifetimes the average person would need to read all the fiction contained therein. To think that one has anything to contribute, to any genre or tradition, takes genuine hubris.”

Thinking Needs Writing Persons Self Would Be Walks Fiction Ignorance Equal Tradition Tasks Lifetime Library Average Genuine Genre Novelists Arrogance Bookstores Average Person Hubris

Author:Laura Lippman

“I'd have been a filmmaker or a cartoonist or something else which extended from the visual arts into the making of narratives if I hadn't been able to shift into fiction.”

Ifs Has Beens Art Able Fiction Narrative Filmmaker Visuals Cartoonist Visual Art

Author:Jonathan Lethem

“Would we be so enamored with dystopian fiction if we lived in a culture where violent death was a major concern? It wouldn't be escapism.”

Ifs Culture Fiction Majors Concern Violent Dystopian Escapism Dystopian Fiction Enamored Violent Death

Author:Maggie Stiefvater

“It seems like there's a real appetite for science fiction in the States.”

Real States Seems Fiction Science Fiction Appetite

Author:Matt Smith

“I think you can get away with being a bit more political in science fiction.”

Thinking Political Bits Fiction Science Fiction Get Away

Author:Rupert Sanders

“The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And yet who are they and where are they? They seem to have as much or more vitality and complexity as the people around you.”

People Character Seems Interesting Fiction Complexity Within You Vitality Interesting Things Standpoint

Author:Whitley Strieber

“The Jetsons had them in the 1960s. They were the defining element of 'Knight Rider' in the 1980s: cars that drive themselves. Self-driving cars appear in countless science fiction movies. By Hollywood standards, they are so normal we don't even notice them. But in real life, they still don't exist. What if you could buy one today?”

Ifs Stills Real Self Today Fiction Car Elements Normal Standards Hollywood Science Fiction Driving Real Life What If Defining 1960s Knights Riders Science Fiction Movie Driving Cars

Author:Sebastian Thrun

“I have been spending the better part of my professional life trying to create self-driving cars. At Google, I am working with a world-class team of engineers to turn science fiction into reality.”

World Trying Has Beens Self Reality Turns Fiction Class Team Car Science Fiction Spending Driving Engineers Google World Class Professional Life Driving Cars

Author:Sebastian Thrun

“Science fiction is becoming more of a diverse kind of genre.”

Kind Fiction Becoming Science Fiction Genre Diverse Becoming More

Author:Anna Torv

“Fiction just has a lot more room for ambivalence and internal conflict, contradiction, and for me that sums up so much of what people felt after 9/11 - confusion even. And I think that's hard to capture in journalism.”

People Thinking Hard Felt Rooms Fiction Conflict Confusion Journalism Contradiction Internals Capture Ambivalence Internal Conflict

Author:Amy Waldman

“History is the history of human behavior, and human behavior is the raw material of fiction. Most people recognize that novelists do research to get the facts right - how a glove factory works, for example, or how courtesans in imperial Japan dressed.”

People Humans Facts Fiction Example Materials Behavior Research Novelists Japan Factories Human Behavior Gloves Raw Materials Courtesans

Author:Amy Waldman

“I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.”

Writing Years Firsts Character Stories Would Be Imagination Fiction Novel Subjects Skills Research Useless Articles Reporters My Imagination Profile

Author:Amy Waldman

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