“I've always thought of my writing as a spiritual practice. But I think that fiction is the most supernatural kind of writing that you can do - because of the ways that the real and the unreal weave together to create something that feels more true than anything.” ThinkingWayFeelsWritingKindRealTogetherSpiritualCan DoFictionPracticeUnrealSpiritual Practice Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
“To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to force him to lay it down with a higher ideal of life than he had when he took it up.” ThinkingWayForceCan DoFictionPiecesReaderHigherIdealsLaysMy WayWay Of Thinking Author:Gene Stratton-Porter
“What a writer can do, what a fiction writer or a poet or an essay writer can do is re-engage people with their own humanity.” PeopleHumanityCan DoFictionPoetEssaysFiction Writers Author:Barbara Kingsolver
“Writing fiction is like music. You have to keep it moving. You can have slow movements but there has to be a sense of momentum, of going someplace. You hear a snatch of Beethoven and it has a sense of momentum that is unmistakably his. That's a nice quality if you can do it in fiction.” IfsWritingMovingCan DoFictionQualityNiceMovementYou Can Do ItMomentumWriting FictionKeep It Moving Author:John Updike
“When I think about the new film, I think I can do whatever I want with fiction, but the more documentary it is, the better it will be because that's what I'm good at. I'm good at observing people's behavior and putting these unspoken things into movie contexts in ways that other people can sometimes miss.” PeopleThinkingWayWantI CanSometimesFilmCan DoFictionMissingBehaviorDocumentariesObservingUnspoken Author:Robert Greene
“I personally just want to do as many different things as I can do, whether it's comedy, drama, science fiction, horror, narrator... You've got a documentary, I've got a voice. Animated films. Big films, small films.” WantI CanDifferentBigsFilmVoiceCan DoFictionComedyDramaHorrorScience FictionDifferent ThingsDocumentariesAnimatedNarratorsAnimated Films Author:Colin Farrell
“...fiction is made out of the writer's experience, his whole life from infancy on, everything he's thought and done and seen and read and dreamed. But experience isn't something you go and get - it's a gift, and the only prerequisite for receiving it is that you be open to it. A closed soul can have the most immense adventures, go through a civil war or a trip to the moon, and have nothing to show for all that "experience"; whereas the open soul can do wonders with nothing.” MadeWarSoulDoneWholeShowsCan DoFictionWonderAdventureMoonWhole LifeCivil WarReceivingImmenseInfancyPrerequisites Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
“When you're not doing fiction, there's a limit to how much illustrating you can do with your work. I mean, you can do fine. There are great non-fiction writers, but people aren't necessarily going to say anything that reveals them as much as a picture might. Even their surroundings, in lot of cases, the things that meant the most to me were the things I noticed in their houses. I was always looking, as much as I was listening to them. I was looking around for clues as to why I was there.” PeopleMeanMightHouseCan DoFictionCasesListeningFineLimitsSay AnythingClueSurroundingsNon FictionFiction WritersIllustrating Author:Miranda July
“I really have to think of the things fiction can do that film can't and play to the strengths of the novel. With a novel you can get right inside somebody's head.” ThinkingPlayFilmCan DoFictionNovel Author:Kazuo Ishiguro
“What fiction and art can do, particularly narrative art, is construct consciousness - in a sense, we have to do it for the first time, every time.” FirstsArtCan DoConsciousnessFictionArt IsFirst TimeNarrativeConstructsNarrative Art Author:Aleksandar Hemon
“If I have learned how to write fiction it's by working with great writers and getting them to explain their craft to me so that I can do it in English.” IfsWritingI CanCan DoFictionCraftsI Have LearnedGreat WritersI Can Do It Author:Elliott Colla
“I've had many students over the years, sometimes even very sophisticated students, who will be writing and will hit a wall. Often I find it's because they're working out of sequence. Maybe some people can do that, but I don't think that's how fiction works. It's a discovery.” PeopleThinkingWritingYearsSometimesCan DoFictionStudentsWallDiscoveryWork OutWorking ItSophisticatedSequence Author:T.C. Boyle
“I think that is one of the things that is beautiful about fiction and that you can do through drama. If I was a detective, I could make a certain version of everything we know to be exactly true. And that would have a certain kind of truth value. And there are certain other things that we know that are emotionally true.” IfsThinkingKnowsKindBeautifulCertainValuesCan DoFictionDramaVersionsDetectives Author:Liza Johnson
“Prose gets divided up into fiction and nonfiction and short fiction and long fiction and autobiographical nonfiction and so on. Poetry can do any of those things except with the added definition of intensified formal pressure.” LongCan DoFictionPressureDefinitionsProseDividedNonfictionFormalFiction And Nonfiction Author:Robert Hass
“I believe in what science fiction can do, which is it can set up simple rules that it has to follow to try to illuminate something about the present that is somewhat invisible to us.” TryingBelieveI BelieveCan DoSimpleFictionScience FictionI Believe InInvisible Author:Brit Marling
“I think I can do whatever I want with fiction, but the more documentary it is, the better it will be because that's what I'm good at. I'm good at observing people's behavior and putting these unspoken things into movie contexts in ways that other people can sometimes miss.” PeopleThinkingWayWantI CanSometimesCan DoFictionMissingBehaviorDocumentariesObservingUnspoken Author:Robert Greene
“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.” WritingWellsWould BeLiteratureCan DoEmotionFictionWonderfulResearchLeapBloodyMottoFiction WritersMy Motto Author:Suhayl Saadi
“In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. That's the only difference, and it lies in the commitment of the writer. A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it.” PeopleWantGivingBelieveLongFactsLyingCan DoDifferencesFictionCommitmentPrejudiceJournalismNovelistsJust OneContrastLegitimacy Author:Gabriel Garcia Marquez