“For the entire decade of my 30s and the early part of my 40s, I didn't write a word of fiction. I just left behind a dream of my life.” WritingDreamLeftBehindsFictionDecadesLeft Behind Author:Elizabeth Gilbert
“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?” IfsStoriesLightFightingWinningLeftStrongDarkFictionMysteryDrinkBedClaimsTrainChairsCompanionSubstitutesSlipsRemorseHangoverOpiatesStrong Drink Author:Mary Cantwell
“They have an amazing proliferation of TV channels now: The all-cartoon channel, the 24-hour-science fiction channel. Of course, to make room for these they got rid of the Literacy Channel and the What's Left of Civilization Channel.” CoursesLeftHoursRoomsFictionTvsCivilizationScience FictionCartoonLiteracyProliferation Author:Dennis Miller
“Rick Bass is one of a dwindling handful of American fiction writers still celebrating the importance of place, the natural world, and the struggle of a few brave souls to live and work respectfully in what's left of our western wilderness...The Lives of Rocks is his most lyrical and powerful book to date...a masterwork.” WorldStillsBookSoulLeftNaturalPowerfulFictionStruggleRocksImportanceBraveWesternCelebrateWildernessHandfulNatural WorldBassFiction WritersLyricalBrave Souls Author:Howard Frank Mosher
“This is a collection of dexterous, loving, beautifully optimistic work that left me breathless and delighted.... Hannu Rajaniemi's magnificent science fiction - as is paradoxically appropriate - is pure magic.” LeftFictionMagicPureScience FictionOptimisticCollectionsAppropriateMagnificentDelightedBreathless Author:Amal El-Mohtar
“If people cannot be flawed in fiction there's no place left for us to be human.” PeopleIfsHumansLeftFictionFlawed Author:Roxane Gay
“We still leave unblotted in the leaves of our statute book, for the reverence and admiration of successive ages, the just and wholesome law which declares that the sturdy felon shall be fed and clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be left to die of starvation and nakedness. This is no fiction.” StillsBookAgeLawDiesLeftFictionDebtFedsAdmirationReverenceStarvationStatutesSturdyDebtorsFelons Author:Charles Dickens
“In fiction, I exercise my nosiness. I am as curious as my cats, and indeed that has led to trouble often enough and used up several of my nine lives. I am an avid listener. I am fascinated by other people's lives, the choices they make and how that works out through time, what they have done and left undone, what they tell me and what they keep secret and silent, what they lie about and what they confess, what they are proud of and what shames them, what they hope for and what they fear. The source of my fiction is the desire to understand people and their choices through time.” PeopleDoneEnoughUsedLyingDesireChoicesLeftSecretFictionTroubleSourceProudExerciseCatShameSilentWork OutNineCuriousFascinatedListenersUndoneRough TimesAvidNine Lives Author:Marge Piercy
“Being a fan of science fiction, I collect a lot of science fiction art work and so if you go to my house there's like a library and you just geek out on science fiction material. A lot of the colony worlds specifically are built as a melting pot of different societies, because the world is at a point where there are only two zones that are left inhabitable.” IfsWorldArtTwoDifferentHouseLeftFictionFansMaterialsBuiltScience FictionLibraryZonePotGeekMeltingColonyMelting Pot Author:Len Wiseman
“I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.” MenKindWantedPoliticalGuyLeftSocialPoorFictionCollegeTypeDegreesWingsPassionateSociologySocial ChangePoor ManLeft WingVery RomanticType Of GuyRomantic And Passionate Author:Andre Dubus
“Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.” WisdomLeftBitsFictionClassicDullLeft OutBladder Author:Clive James
“In the past we have always assumed that the external world around us has represented reality, however confusing or uncertain, and that the inner world of our minds, its dreams, hopes, ambitions, represented the realm of fantasy, and the imagination. These roles, it seems to me, have been reversed. The most prudent and effective method of dealing with the world around us is to assume that it is a complete fiction - conversely, the one small node of reality left to us is inside of our own heads.” WorldMindHas BeensDreamRealitySeemsPastLeftImaginationFictionRolesFantasyAmbitionMethodAssumingRealmsUncertainConfusingPrudentInner World Author:J. G. Ballard
“Though I later found a career as a journalist and an essayist, fiction is my first love and I never left it, even though there was no easy way to make a living from it.” WayFirstsFoundLeftEasyFictionCareersJournalistFirst LoveEasy WayEssayists Author:Andrew Lam
“Cut quarrels out of literature, and you will have very little history or drama or fiction or epic poetry left.” LittlesLiteratureLeftFictionCuttingDramaEpicQuarrelsHygieneEpic Poetry Author:Robert Staughton Lynd