“Utopian fiction is really boring. I had to read a lot of it, and it's not that much fun. But they're fascinating to me as historical documents. Cabet [Icaria's founder and author of the utopian novel, Travels in Icaria], is writing in the 1830s, and his idea of the perfect society reveals a lot about his time. But his book is uniquely bad.” WritingBookIdeasFunPerfectFictionNovelHistoricalBoringFascinatingFoundersDocumentsUtopianPerfect Society Author:Christine Jennings
“I use biography, I use literary connections (as with Platen - this seems to me extremely helpful for appreciating the nuances of Mann's and Aschenbach's sexuality), I use philosophical sources (but not in the way many Mann critics do, where the philosophical theses and concepts seem to be counters to be pushed around rather than ideas to be probed), and I use juxtapositions with other literary works (including Mann's other fiction) and with works of music.” WayIdeasUseSeemsFictionSourceConceptsAppreciateConnectionsPhilosophicalCriticsIncludingSexualityHelpfulBiographiesNuanceThesisJuxtapositionLiterary Works Author:Philip Kitcher
“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
“And from, you know, small ideas, bigger ideas emerge. So we're starting with suborbital space flights and we'll then go into orbital space flights and, you know, maybe one day we'll send people on a one-way voyage into the depths of space as per the science fiction trips.” PeopleKnowsWayIdeasSpaceFictionOne DayBiggerScience FictionDepthStartingFlightOne WayVoyagesMaybe One DaySpace FlightSmall Ideas Author:Richard Branson
“I think there's nothing more wonderful than using fiction to reflect real-world cultural ideas.” ThinkingWorldIdeasRealFictionWonderfulReal World Author:Jesse Eisenberg
“I tend more towards what some people call literary science fiction, but what I mean by that is that it is full of interesting language, experimentation, and ideas.” PeopleMeanIdeasLanguageInterestingFictionScience FictionExperimentation Author:Edward Einhorn
“I think of poetry as a very inclusive term. Still, it's interesting that people want to make the distinction. I love the magazine Double Room for that reason (contributors have to write about their ideas on the prose poem/flash fiction).” PeopleThinkingWantWritingStillsIdeasReasonTermInterestingRoomsFictionMagazinesProseDistinctionFlashContributors Author:Matthea Harvey
“I think the idea was to make a horror film that became a science-fiction film with a lot of melodramatic tropes.” ThinkingIdeasFilmFictionHorrorScience FictionHorror FilmTropes Author:Nicolas Winding Refn
“I love telling stories, I love for someone to see something, and go, "Oh, wow, I've never thought of it that way." Because I've had those moments in my life, where I go, "Oh, my God, I've never looked or approached this topic and had that insight or had that idea come to mind," to where it changes your life, it changes the way you see certain things. I love that. I think that's such a cool thing that we get to do by sharing stories, whether they're fiction or nonfiction.” ThinkingWayMindIdeasMomentsStoriesCertainFictionInsightWowNonfictionTopicsChanging Your LifeTelling StoriesThings I LoveCool ThingsSharing Stories Author:Tyler Hoechlin
“[Michael] Chabon, who is himself a brash and playful and ebullient genre-bender, writes about how our idea of what constitutes literary fiction is a very narrow idea that, world-historically, evolved over the last sixty or seventy years or so - that until the rise of that kind of third-person-limited, middle-aged-white-guy-experiencing-enlightenment story as in some way the epitome of literary fiction - before that all kinds of crazy things that we would now define as belonging to genre were part of the literary canon.” WorldWayWritingYearsKindPersonsIdeasStoriesLastsGuyWhiteFictionCrazyMiddleEnlightenmentThirdsAll KindsGenreBelongingSixtySeventiesMiddle AgedCanonCrazy ThingsEpitomeWhite GuysThird PersonBrash Author:Emily Barton
“In Pakistan, many of the young people read novels because in the novels, not just my novels but the novels of many other Pakistani writers, they encounter ideas, notions, ways of thinking about the world, thinking about their society that are different. And fiction functions in a countercultural way as it does in America and certainly as it did in the, you know, '60s.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWorldWayDoeIdeasDifferentAmericaYoungFictionNovelFunctionNotionEncountersPakistanWay Of Thinking Author:Mohsin Hamid
“I'm definitely excited by big ideas, both in what I write and what I read. Most days, reality is so mind-numbingly dull that I don't understand why someone would write strictly realistic stories, given the almost limitless freedom fiction provides. I don't see the point of making believe if you're not going to actually make believe: hang your ass out in the wind, push at every boundary, make almost unreasonable demands on your reader's willingness to suspend disbelief. This is dangerous, and prone to failure, but that's part of what makes it fun.” IfsWritingMindBelieveIdeasStoriesBigsRealityGivenFunFictionDangerousWindReaderDemandExcitedBoundariesAssDullWillingnessRealisticLimitlessDisbeliefUnreasonableMake BelieveBig Ideas Author:Ron Currie Jr.
“I think a more complex idea of fiction - and the human self's relationship with the world - emerges when we abandon this philistine equation between literature and liberalism and human goodness, and pay some attention to the darker, ambiguous, and often muddled energies and motivations that shape a work of art. If we do this, we can appreciate a writer like Céline or Gottfried Benn without worrying whether they conform to existing notions of political incorrectness.” IfsThinkingWorldHumansArtIdeasSelfPoliticalMotivationLiteratureEnergyLinesPayAttentionFictionWorryShapesGoodnessAppreciateComplexesNotionLiberalismAbandonWorks Of ArtConformEquationsAmbiguousPhilistines Author:Pankaj Mishra
“Fiction isn't made by scraping the bones of topicality for the last shreds and sinews, to be processed into mechanically recovered prose. Like journalism, it deals in ideas as well as facts, but also in metaphors, symbols and myths.” WellsMadeIdeasFactsLastsDealsFictionMetaphorBonesMythSymbolsJournalismProseScraping Author:Hilary Mantel
“The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.” StillsBookIdeasFictionAppealsNon FictionFlip Author:Yann Martel