“It seems to me that life's circumstances, being ephemeral, teach us less about durable truths than the fictions based on those truths; and that the best lessons of delicacy and self-respect are to be found in novels where the feelings are so naturally portrayed that you fancy you are witnessing real life as you read.” RealSelfFeelingsSeemsFoundFictionTeachNovelCircumstancesLessonsReal LifeFancySelf RespectEphemeralDelicacy Author:Madame de Stael
“It is worth repeating that powerful imagination is not false outward vision, but intense inward representation, and a creative energy constantly fed by susceptibility to the veriest minutiæ of experience, which it reproduces and constructs in fresh and fresh wholes; not the habitual confusion of provable fact with the fictions of fancy and transient inclination, but a breadth of ideal association which informs every material object, every incidental fact with far-reaching memories and storied residues of passion, bringing into new light the less obvious relations to human existence.” HumansFactsLightPassionEnergyImaginationMemoriesPowerfulExistenceFictionVisionCreativeObjectsMaterialsIdealsRelationObviousIntenseConfusionFancyReachingFedsAssociationInwardRepresentationConstructsInclinationHuman ExistenceHabitualTransientBreadthCreative EnergySusceptibility Author:George Eliot
“We shall not read it for its sociological insights, which are non-existent, nor as science fiction, because it has a general air of implausibility; but there is one high poetic fancy in the New Atlantis that stays in the mind after all its fancies and inventions have been forgotten. In the New Atlantis, an island kingdom lying in very distant seas, the only commodity of external trade is light: Bacon's own special light, the light of understanding.” MindHas BeensLightLyingUnderstandingFictionAirSeaSpecialTradeScience FictionForgottenInsightInventionKingdomsIslandsFancyPoeticCommodityAtlantisSociological Author:Peter Medawar
“On the wings of fancy, gentle readers, bear yourselves into the mid-air, where by imagination you may form a large stupendous castle.” MayFormReadingImaginationFictionAirBearsReaderWingsGentleFancyCastles Book:The cry (1754) Source: The cry (1754)
“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