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Fiction Quotes

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Fiction Quotes

“The purpose of a work of fiction is to appeal to the lingering after-effects in the reader's mind as differing from, say, the purpose of oratory or philosophy which respectively leave people in a fighting or thoughtful mood.”

People Mind Philosophy Purpose Fighting Fiction Effects Reader Mood Appeals Thoughtful Lingering Oratory

Book:The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works

Source: The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works

“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?”

Ifs Stories Light Fighting Winning Left Strong Dark Fiction Mystery Drink Bed Claims Train Chairs Companion Substitutes Slips Remorse Hangover Opiates Strong Drink

Author:Mary Cantwell

“I would love to see what's going to happen with science fiction with peoples' heads, because we still have people running around in the year 2050 or 2100 or 2200 and they have incredible technology and you see the effects: laser beams and rays and beaming down and beaming up. Incredible technical things happening, but everybody is still running around jealous, fighting, whacking, cheating. There's got to be something going on! Some kind of change. I'd like to see something starting to happen in that area, with the psychology of the human being and how that changed.”

“A program of "disarmament," while imperialist antagonisms survive, is the most pernicious of fictions. Even if it were realized by way of general agreement - an obviously fantastic assumption!- that would by no means prevent a new war. The imperialists do not make war because there are armaments; on the contrary, they forge arms when they need to fight.”

Ifs Way Needs Mean War Fighting Fiction Arms Program Contrary Fantastic Assumption Agreement Disarmament Pernicious Antagonism Armament

Book:The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it Going?

Source: The Revolution Betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it Going?

“In prose fiction the freedom to work honestly exists, although you may have to fight for it. In those other areas of literature, I mean drama, there is only silence. That sort of aesthetic integrity does not exist in radio and television, and seldom on film.”

May Mean Doe Film Fighting Literature Silence Fiction Television Integrity Drama Areas Radio Honestly Prose Aesthetic

Author:James Kelman

“There's always someone kicking guns. We wanted ["Badlands"] to be a world without guns and bullets, where martial arts was the form of fighting and defense and attack. Martial arts is king in this world. That was the first thing. We didn't want it to be a period piece either. We felt those are overdone and stuffy. That was what lead us to explore that area of science fiction and future, a world we can create and control.”

World Want Firsts Art Wanted Form Fighting Felt Fiction Pieces This World Kings Periods Art Is Gun Areas Science Fiction Defense Martial Arts Bullets Kicking

Author:Miles Millar

“What you create when you're teaching fiction writing is a kind of literary salon, not a social club or a mutual admiration society, not a debating society, not a repair shop, not a fight club or a soap box. It's a place to have a conversation about a story.”

Writing Kind Stories Fighting Social Fiction Teaching Conversation Boxes Clubs Shops Mutual Admiration Soap Fiction Writing Salons Mutual Admiration

Author:John Dufresne

“If anyone ever said biopic I would say, "It's not a biopic." We're fighting uphill against the weight of history. I was like, why don't we just call it historical fiction?”

Ifs Said Fighting Fiction Weight Historical Historical Fiction

Author:Don Cheadle

“I'm always looking for context in which people tell stories. In "Fight Club" it's these support groups for dying people, and then in "Choke" it's 12-step recovery groups. In one novel it's artists' colonies, in another novel it's a diary form that submariners' wives typically keep so that when their husband comes back from serving on a submarine they have an accounting of their spouse's time. So I'm always looking for, number one, a non-fiction context - because you can tell a more outrageous story if you use a non-fiction form.”

“In fiction, it's as if you enter a dream world that you created, but your characters have their own free will. They don't do what you want them to do - they get into trouble, do drugs, fight over petty things, and do outrageous things that you wouldn't want your children to do. In other words, you can only provide the background, the seeds - in my case the background of the Vietnamese refugee.”