“[Vathek] has, in parts, been called, but to some judgments, never is, dull: it is certainly in parts, grotesque, extravagant and even nasty. But Beckford could plead sufficient "local colour" for it, and a contrast, again almost Shakespearean, between the flickering farce atrocities of the beginning and the sombre magnificence of the end. Beckford's claims, in fact, rest on the half-score or even half-dozen pages towards the end: but these pages are hard to parallel in the later literature of prose fiction.” EndsHardFactsLiteratureHalfFictionJudgmentPagesClaimsLocalsSufficientColourDullProseScoreDozenContrastNastyParallelsAtrocitiesExtravagantGrotesqueMagnificenceFarce Author:William Thomas Beckford
“Mystery fiction is, after all, a substitute for tranquilizers, strong drink, and bad, if diverting, companions. One slips into bed ... onto the train ... into the chair in the sickroom ... and is suddenly transported to a place where light fights dark and wins. When the story's over, one is left without a hangover, without remorse. Can any other opiate make that claim?” IfsStoriesLightFightingWinningLeftStrongDarkFictionMysteryDrinkBedClaimsTrainChairsCompanionSubstitutesSlipsRemorseHangoverOpiatesStrong Drink Author:Mary Cantwell
“The short story is at an advantage over the novel, and can claim its nearer kinship to poetry, because it must be more concentrated, can be more visionary, and is not weighed down (as the novel is bound to be) by facts, explanation, or analysis. I do not mean to say that the short story is by any means exempt from the laws of narrative: it must observe them, but on its own terms.” MeanFactsStoriesLawTermFictionNovelAdvantageClaimsBoundsNarrativeAnalysisExplanationPoetry IsShort StoryVisionariesKinship Book:Stories Source: Stories
“Luck took me right out of myself - I read it in one gulp, and it never let me down. Sharp and surprising but always responsible, no tricks for tricks' sake; so satisfying, with its shifting and puzzles. So much fiction turns out to be diversion, in spite of fancy claims, and doesn't really look at anything. Well - this does.” WellsLooksDoeTurnsFictionLet MeClaimsResponsibleLuckSakeTricksFancySpiteSatisfyingSurprisingPuzzlesShiftingDiversionLet Me Down Author:Alice Munro
“A lot of people mistake the persona that I create in poetry and fiction with me. A lot of people claim to know me who don't really know me. They know the work, or they know the persona in the work, and they confuse that with me, the writer. They don't realize that the persona is also a creation and a fabrication, a composite of my friends and myself all pasted together.” PeopleKnowsTogetherRealizingMistakeFictionCreationMy FriendsClaimsKnow MePersonaFabricationComposites Author:Sandra Cisneros
“I adore [photography's] uneasy mix of fact and fiction - its dubious claim to truth - its status as history.” FactsFictionPhotographyClaimsAdoreUneasyDubiousFact And Fiction Author:Eleanor Antin
“...The very word 'fiction' implies another world, literally a different place, whereas no one claims that a dedicated sportsman is escaping his life, or a chef or a nurse. But the poor writer - the sci-fi one especially - is seen as running away. Bollocks. This is real, for me, and it's tough, it's fun, it's practical, and it's very, very important.” WorldImportantDifferentRealRunningFunPoorFictionToughClaimsPracticalsSci FiDedicatedNurseRunning AwayChefDifferent PlaceAnother WorldEscapingSportsman Author:Russell T Davies
“Of course, it's always difficult to disentangle fact from fiction in relation to, e.g., the singularity project. Many scientists I know are dismissive of transhumanist claims, BUT the last 100 years has surely taught us never to underestimate the pace and scope of scientific progress. However, even if much of this turns out to be science-fiction, it also reveals a way of thinking about human life that I find deeply troubling.” IfsThinkingKnowsWayYearsHumansFactsLastsTurnsCoursesDifficultFictionProgressTaughtProjectsScientistClaimsRelationScience FictionHuman LifePaceUnderestimateScopeWay Of ThinkingTaught UsSingularityScientific Progress Author:George Pattison
“I never paid attention when people said, "That's gotta be poetry. That's gotta be fiction," except when I was in a graduate program, and you had to claim your genre.” PeopleSaidAttentionFictionProgramClaimsPaidGenreGraduates Author:Sandra Cisneros
“I can't claim to be disenchanted "with the current state of fiction" because I read so little of it. My reading is mostly drawn to history.” LittlesI CanStatesReadingFictionClaimsCurrentsDisenchanted Author:Cynthia Ozick
“There is really no fiction or non-fiction; there is only narrative. One mode of perception has no greater claim on the truth than the other; that the distance has perhaps to do with distance - narrative distance - from the characters; it has to do with the kind of voice that is talking, but it certainly hasn't to do with the common distribution between fact and imagination.” KindCharacterFactsVoiceImaginationCommonFictionTalkingGreaterPerceptionClaimsDistanceNarrativeDistributionNon Fiction Author:E. L. Doctorow