“I read a fair amount [of science fiction], and you know it was certainly inspirational. I have to pinch myself to think that we might be able to make some of [what I've read in science fiction books] come true.” ThinkingKnowsBookMightAbleFictionAmountFairsScience Fiction Author:Richard Branson
“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
“As a fiction writer, one of things you learn is God lives in specificity. You know, human kindness is increased as we pursue specificity.” KnowsHumansFictionKindnessPursueFiction WritersGod LifeHuman KindnessSpecificity Author:George Saunders
“I think that is one of the things that is beautiful about fiction and that you can do through drama. If I was a detective, I could make a certain version of everything we know to be exactly true. And that would have a certain kind of truth value. And there are certain other things that we know that are emotionally true.” IfsThinkingKnowsKindBeautifulCertainValuesCan DoFictionDramaVersionsDetectives Author:Liza Johnson
“Kids are growing up and they don't know the difference between fact and fiction. The line is getting blurry. I can handle it, you know; I'm a big boy. And the entertainment industry has always been crazy. But the problem is, it spills over into some very serious issues, in politics and real newsworthy stuff.” KnowsI CanRealFactsProblemBigsKidsStuffDifferencesLinesFictionBoysGrowing UpIssuesGrowingCrazySeriousIndustryEntertainmentHandleSpillsEntertainment IndustryBlurrySerious IssuesNewsworthyFact And Fiction Author:Rob Lowe
“I really don't know enough about the structure of fiction.” KnowsEnoughFictionStructure Author:Conrad Aiken
“Science fiction without the science just becomes, you know, sword and sorcery, basically stories about heroism and not much more.” KnowsStoriesFictionScience FictionHeroismSorcery Author:Michio Kaku
“Historical fiction is a collaboration between the time in which it's written and the time that it's writing about and the far future, when we don't know what people are going to think about yet.” PeopleThinkingKnowsWritingFictionWrittenHistoricalCollaborationHistorical Fiction Author:Emily Barton
“Having done, you know, science fiction, I didn't want to get trapped in science fiction. So my eclecticism was my only conscious choice. I didn't want to find myself in a niche that I couldn't get out of.” KnowsWantDoneChoicesFictionConsciousScience FictionTrappedNiche Author:Nicholas Meyer
“Very, very often in movie sex you see this fiction about unity. A union. That somehow these two thinking beings become one, and there's one action and they're sort of perfectly in sync, and the lighting's perfect, and they've got their eyes closed, and they're gone, you know? And then you cut to someone having a cigarette. And it's all so much Novocain. Meanwhile, those of us us watching it are going "I'm never going to tell anybody, but I never have sex like that".” ThinkingKnowsTwoEyeActionSexPerfectFictionGoneCuttingUnionsUnityNow And ThenCigaretteLightingSync Author:Tilda Swinton
“I use my fiction to explore my own unconscious issues. I usually don't even know what's going on with me until I'm writing.” KnowsWritingUseMy OwnFictionIssuesUnconscious Author:Janet Fitch
“My general approach to writing fiction is that you try to have as few conceptual notions as possible and you just respond to the energy that the story is making rather than having a big over plan. I think if you have a big over plan, the danger is that you might just take your plan and then you bore everybody. I always joke that it's like going on a date with index cards. You know, at 7:30 p.m. I should ask about her mother. You keep all the control to yourself but you are kind of insulting to the other person.” IfsThinkingKnowsShouldWritingTryingKindPersonsStoriesBigsMightMotherAsksEnergyFictionPlansDangerApproachJokesNotionCardsBoresInsultingWriting Fiction Author:George Saunders
“With a novel, you have the reader with you a lot longer, and you owe him a lot more. Obviously you have to have a plot - I say "obviously," although I think a lot of fiction doesn't, and nothing seems to happen. But to me, there should be something that happens, and it should be at least vaguely plausible. And because the readers are going to be with these characters for a long time, you have to get to know them and like them and want to know what happens to them.” ThinkingKnowsWantShouldLongCharacterSeemsHappensFictionNovelReaderLong TimePlotPlausible Author:Dave Barry
“I really need to know where I'm going with fiction to write it in a way that at least I'm happy with. And I really think that a lot of fiction books end badly because terrific writers said, "I'll just figure it out" and plunge in, but have created so many problems that they are kind of impossible to solve. I mean, I'm talking really good writers do this and you can tell when they got to the end they either had to do something preposterous or they just don't really resolve things. So for fiction I spend a lot more time outlining and for humor I really don't do much of it.” ThinkingKnowsWayNeedsWritingKindMeanSaidBookEndsProblemFictionTalkingImpossibleFiguresSolveResolveMore TimeTerrificPlungeGood WritersOutlining Author:Dave Barry
“I love the resource of the Internet. I use it all the time. Anything I'm writing - for example, if I'm writing a scene about Washington D.C. and I want to know where this monument is, I can find it right away, I can get a picture of the monument, it just makes your life so much easier, especially if you're writing fiction. You can check stuff so much quicker, and I think that's all great for writers.” IfsThinkingKnowsWantWritingI CanUseStuffFictionExampleInternetEasierSceneResourcesChecksMonumentWriting Fiction Author:Dave Barry
“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 know people who've passed every creative writing course under the sun and who are more analytically intelligent and far better-read than I, but who just can't write either fiction or drama. It's like any art-form. In order for talent to be developed, crafted, it's got to be there in the first place.” PeopleKnowsWritingFirstsArtFormOrderCoursesFictionSunCreativeTalentDramaIntelligentCreative Writing Author:Suhayl Saadi
“In a democracy in the 20th and 21st century, if you can't base your fiction upon ordinary people and the issues that engage them, then you are reduced to writing about spectacular unreal people. You know, James Bond or something, and you cook up adventures.” PeopleIfsKnowsWritingFictionDemocracyIssuesCenturyAdventureOrdinaryCooks21st CenturyOrdinary PeopleSpectacularUnreal Author:John Updike
“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
“Whiteness itself is artifice, is fiction, is a construction, is narrative, is myth. And I seek to deconstruct all of that, to challenge the accretion, the intellectual accretion, the philosophical secretion that generates within the edifice of white supremacy that allows people easy escape, and egress. And I'm saying, "No, you can't leave now. You cannot afford to not know what I'm talking about, because you gotta be held accountable."” PeopleKnowsEasyChallengesWhiteFictionTalkingIntellectualPhilosophicalMythNarrativeConstructionWhite SupremacySaying NoSupremacyWhitenessArtificeEdifice Author:Michael Eric Dyson
“As you may know, my motto is: "All memory is fiction." It could just as easily be: "All fiction is memory." Unpacked, these two statements defy the ease of logic, but offer some really important truths about narrative art, at the very least, and about memory. So I would say that all art is personal.” KnowsMayArtTwoImportantMemoriesFictionOffersArt IsLogicStatementsNarrativeEaseMottoMy MottoNarrative Art Author:Kwame Dawes
“Life is stranger than fiction. It's nice to have stuff that people don't know about. And it helps when you read a bad review. You can go, "This guy doesn't have me figured out." There's more mystery to you than they understand.” PeopleKnowsHelpingLife IsGuyStuffFictionNiceMysteryStrangerReviewsThis GuyBad ReviewsStranger Than Fiction Author:Dolph Lundgren
“I know I'm a rare person, a trained scientist who writes fiction, because so few contemporary novelists engage with science.” KnowsWritingPersonsFictionScientistContemporaryNovelistsRare Person Author:Barbara Kingsolver
“As much as I love historical fiction, my problem with historical fiction is that you always know what's going to happen.” KnowsProblemHappensFictionHistoricalHistorical Fiction Author:George R. R. Martin