“Who reads short stories? one is asked, and I like to think that they are read by men and women in the dentist's office, waiting to be called to the chair; they are read on transcontinental plane trips instead of watching banal and vulgar films spin out the time between our coasts; they are read by discerning and well-informed men and women who seem to feel that narrative fiction can contribute to our understanding of one another and the sometimes bewildering world around us.” ThinkingMenWorldFeelsWellsSometimesStoriesSeemsFilmWaitingUnderstandingFictionOfficeMen And WomenNarrativePlanesChairsShort StoryCoastVulgarDentistDiscerning Book:John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings Source: John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings
“I can think of very few science books I've read that I've called useful. What they've been is wonderful. They've actually made me feel that the world around me is a much fuller, much more wonderful, much more awesome place than I ever realized it was. That has been, for me, the wonder of science. That's why science fiction retains its compelling fascination for people. That's why the move of science fiction into biology is so intriguing. I think that science has got a wonderful story to tell.” PeopleThinkingWorldFeelsHas BeensMadeI CanBookStoriesMovingFictionWonderWonderfulScience FictionBiologyCompellingFascinationIntriguingScience Books Author:Simon Jenkins
“When you're writing a book that is going to be a narrative with characters and events, you're walking very close to fiction, since you're using some of the methods of fiction writing. You're lying, but some of the details may well come from your general recollection rather than from the particular scene. In the end it comes down to the readers. If they believe you, you're OK. A memoirist is really like any other con man; if he's convincing, he's home. If he isn't, it doesn't really matter whether it happened, he hasn't succeeded in making it feel convincing.” IfsMenFeelsWritingBelieveWellsMayBookEndsMatterCharacterHomeLyingFictionHappenedEventsParticularReaderWalkingSceneMethodDetailsNarrativeConvincingWriting A BookRecollectionFiction Writing Author:Samuel Hynes
“Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction...All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland...I just hate to be in one corner. I hate to be put as only a guitar player, or either only as a songwriter, or only as a tap dancer. I like to move around...Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” IfsWorldFeelsWritingLittlesHappensMovingLyingHateImaginationFictionPlayerThis WorldChangedKeysI HateScience FictionGuitarCornersNakedDancerSongwritersGuitar PlayerBlandTap Dancers Author:Jimi Hendrix
“There are people you do not want to upset in the world - the politically disenfranchized who feel they have nothing to lose, those who feel that the time has come for revolution ... then out on the edges beyond any of those are science fiction fans whose favorite show has been canceled in an untimely way.” PeopleWorldWayWantFeelsHas BeensShowsLosesFictionFansRevolutionScience FictionEdgesUpsetNothing To Lose Author:Neil Gaiman
“[W]hen you're shooting a doc, you're trying to class it up because you can. You know, you're trying to make this feel like cinematic experience. And when you're doing fiction you're trying to do the opposite thing you're trying to take this very artificial experience this very artificial experience and make it feel real and visceral.” KnowsFeelsTryingRealFictionClassOppositesShootingArtificialVisceralCinematicHens Author:John Hyams
“...You believe that the kind of story you want to tell might be best received by the science fiction and fantasy audience. I hope you're right, because in many ways this is the best audience in the world to write for. They're open-minded and intelligent. They want to think as well as feel, understand as well as dream. Above all, they want to be led into places that no one has ever visited before. It's a privilege to tell stories to these readers, and an honour when they applaud the tale you tell.” ThinkingWorldWayWantFeelsWritingBelieveWellsKindStoriesDreamMightFictionFantasyAudienceReaderIntelligentScience FictionPrivilegeTalesHonourOpen MindedScience Fiction And Fantasy Author:Orson Scott Card
“Now that I no longer feel lonely, and now that my own past feels resolved in a whole new and very deep way, I am excited to write about the real world, to stay in it. Fiction is an escape, a parallel life, and it was a powerful source of comfort for me when my own life was raw and uncomfortable. I don't feel the burning need to disappear into a fictional character these days.” WorldWayNeedsFeelsWritingRealWholeCharacterPastMy OwnPowerfulFictionSourceComfortLonelyExcitedDisappearBurningThese DaysUncomfortableReal WorldParallelsMy Own LifeVery DeepFeeling LonelyFictional CharacterParallel Lives Author:Kate Christensen
“With the historical fictions, I was already doing so much research, and so much of the stories was anchored by historical truth that the move to nonfiction didn't feel all that dramatic - just another half-step to the right.” FeelsStoriesMovingHalfFictionStepsResearchHistoricalDramaticHistorical FictionNonfictionHistorical Truth Author:Debra Dean
“The Israel stories were really hard for me to write, because I think that my book is very much about politics, but it isn't political. It really was important for me to not have a political agenda at all, because I have a hard time stomaching any political fiction that feels message-y.” ThinkingFeelsWritingImportantBookHardStoriesPoliticalFictionMessagesIsraelHard TimesAgendasPolitical Agendas Author:Molly Antopol
“The idea of the writer who writes nineteen novels, with various ups and downs and levels of experimentation, isn't around so much now. There's a focus, I think, on fewer books, with more pressure on each book to succeed. With that there comes, I think, a certain pressure towards shapeliness in fiction. Towards neatness. And I think writers feel that, and it can effect how they write.” ThinkingFeelsWritingBookIdeasCertainLevelsFictionNovelFocusEffectsSucceedPressureVariousFewerUps & DownsExperimentationNineteenNeatness Author:Chad Harbach
“Fiction and screenwriting blend for me. I feel like being a TV writer/screenwriter has definitely made my fiction writing better, although I have less time to do it.” FeelsWritingMadeFictionTvsScreenwritersFiction WritingScreenwriting Author:Nick Antosca
“We all know to feel sympathy for those who've suffered from drug addiction, child abuse, and terminal illness, so the set up elicits an emotional response that the story itself very well may not earn. Energy generated by the fiction itself is likely to produce more light.” KnowsFeelsWellsMayChildrenStoriesLightEnergyFictionProduceEmotionalDrugAbuseResponseAddictionIllnessChild AbuseDrug AddictionDrug AddictTerminalEmotional ResponseTerminal Illness Author:Anthony Marra
“Historical novels are about costumery. I think that's the magic and mystery of fiction. I don't want to write historical fiction but I do want the story to have the feel of history. There's a difference.” ThinkingWantFeelsWritingStoriesDifferencesFictionNovelMagicMysteryHistoricalHistorical FictionHistorical Novels Author:Chang-Rae Lee
“The feeling of being an outsider, and the identity theme, are hardwired into me. If there's anything really autobiographical in my fiction, it's that feeling. I always feel that way.” IfsWayFeelsFeelingsFictionIdentityThemeOutsiders Author:Dan Chaon
“I grew up reading crime fiction mysteries, true crime - a lot of true crime - and it is traditionally a male dominated field from the outside, but from the inside what we know, those of us who read it, is that women buy the most crime fiction, they are by far the biggest readers of true crime, and there's a voracious appetite among women for these stories, and I know I feel it - since I was quite small I wanted to go to those dark places.” KnowsFeelsStoriesWantedReadingDarkFictionMysteryCrimeFieldsGrewReaderGrew UpMalesAppetiteCrime FictionDark Places Author:Megan Abbott
“All of a sudden, I sort of started to feel that I was constrained by the characters as opposed to enjoying them. And that remains for me to this day the line that I know where it's like, OK, you're not writing fan fiction anymore.” KnowsFeelsWritingCharacterEnjoyLinesFictionFansRemainsThis Day Author:Naomi Novik
“I'm not a literary writer who is wedded to notions of realism and fiction. I believe that you can write anything if you can feel it convincingly.” IfsFeelsWritingBelieveI BelieveFictionNotionRealism Author:Christopher Rice
“The short story feels like the most natural length for prose fiction, or certainly for the kind of ideas and situations I like to encounter.” FeelsKindIdeasStoriesNaturalFictionSituationEncountersProseLengthShort Story Author:Nicholas Royle
“While the film [Hide and seek] is a work of fiction, I know many people, not just women, who have felt the way my character feels in the film, a certain kind of invisibility. I am grateful that my parents, Bev Umehara and Russell Chang, instilled a healthy sense of self-esteem in me from an early age.” PeopleKnowsWayFeelsKindSelfCharacterAgeFilmCertainFeltParentFictionSelf EsteemHealthyGratefulEsteemSense Of SelfInvisibilityI Am GratefulHide And Seek Author:Garth Kravits
“There was a period that black film had no chance of making it in Hollywood. So, people just made the made the statements that they wanted to make. Whether it was a science fiction film or whatever, b/c they were just making movie for themselves. Then there was a period where people were creating projects as their Hollywood audition 'pieces'. I feel that today we are moving back to the era where we all have our own voices.” PeopleFeelsMadeTodayWantedFilmMovingBlackVoiceChanceFictionPiecesPeriodsProjectsCreatingHollywoodScience FictionStatementsErasAuditionsMoving Back Author:Reginald Hudlin
“Because I write realistic fiction, I generally don't think about fixing anyone - I just think about how I want to feel at the end of the book - And I try to write toward that feeling.” ThinkingWantFeelsWritingTryingBookEndsFeelingsFictionRealisticFixingRealistic Fiction Author:Jacqueline Woodson
“I feel akin to [William] Shakespeare in the sense that, as I see it, he lived to dramatize the unfailingly exciting, unfathomably strange interplay among human beings that constitutes "scenes" in his plays, and constitutes "story" in prose fiction.” FeelsHumansPlayStoriesHuman BeingsFictionStrangeSceneExcitingProse Author:Joyce Carol Oates
“I feel a terrible loss when I (eventually must) complete a work of fiction.” FeelsLossFictionTerrible Author:Joyce Carol Oates
“It's fiction's job to express how it feels to be living now, and it's a complex feeling, full of contradiction. To me it often feels like a brutal trivialization of reality.” FeelsFeelingsRealityJobsFictionComplexesContradictionBrutal Author:Michael Helm
“Some trans people thought that in claiming that gender is performative that I was saying that it is all a fiction, and that a person's felt sense of gender was therefore "unreal." That was never my intention. I sought to expand our sense of what gender realities could be. But I think I needed to pay more attention to what people feel, how the primary experience of the body is registered, and the quite urgent and legitimate demand to have those aspects of sex recognized and supported.” PeopleThinkingFeelsPersonsBodyRealitySexFeltPayAttentionFictionNeededDemandAspectIntentionGenderPrimariesUrgentUnrealTrans Author:Judith Butler
“I try and make non-fiction films that feel like fiction, so I'm always looking for the subtext and that's what really excites me.” FeelsTryingFilmFictionNon FictionSubtext Author:Brett Morgen
“One of my central approaches to writing speculative fiction is to take an absurd situation, which we presently feel is normal, and then push it to an even further absurdity. It's only in this light that we can see the reflection of the disturbing state of our present-day affairs.” FeelsWritingStatesLightFictionSituationNormalApproachReflectionAffairAbsurdAbsurdityDisturbingPresent DaySpeculative Fiction Author:Alexander Weinstein
“For me, fantasy and speculative science fiction are the genres that feel closest to how I feel about being alive. Like, when I feel the most invigorated by just even a walk down the block in twilight, when the street lamps are just coming on and there's mist and some shadowy thing in silhouette in a window, I naturally invest all of those things with deep mythology and mystery and meaning. I think I need to believe in that version of reality because I get very scared when I don't.” ThinkingNeedsFeelsBelieveRealityWalksFictionFantasyAliveMysteryStreetsWindowScience FictionScaredMythologyVersionsBlockGenreTwilightClosestLampsMistSilhouettes Author:Brit Marling
“I feel engaged with young people in Pakistan. But that said, it's still a small minority that reads novels, literary fiction. But it isn't necessarily a small minority of the wealthy elite in the city of Lahore. It can often be and I often do meet at literary festivals students who've ridden a bus 12 hours from a very small town just to hear some of their favorite writers come and speak.” PeopleFeelsSaidStillsYoungSpeakHoursCitiesFictionNovelStudentsTownsEngagedMinoritiesWealthyBusElitesPakistanSmall TownFestivalsOften IsLahore 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.” IfsFeelsShowsRunningFictionDespairNewsPagesFlowLoved OnesVengeanceHelplessnessFiction WritersDeparted Author:Ron Currie Jr.
“What fiction does is bring you closer to the essence of truth, as opposed to simply giving you the truth. And there's no knowing truth. Truth seekers are all charlatans. You can only feel the truth of something.” GivingFeelsDoeFictionKnowingEssenceSeekersCharlatansTruth Seekers Author:Sarnath Banerjee
“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.” IfsKnowsFeelsWritingCertainReadingFictionEmotionalIntellectualConnectionsInvestmentConnectedCleverLiftsParagraphFiction WritersEmotional Investment Author:Oscar Hijuelos
“It's true that I don't rearrange that much in the fiction, but I feel if you change even one name or the order of one event then you have to call it fiction or you get all the credits of non-fiction without paying the price.” IfsFeelsOrderNamesFictionEventsCreditNon Fiction Author:Nicholson Baker