“It is worth repeating that powerful imagination is not false outward vision, but intense inward representation, and a creative energy constantly fed by susceptibility to the veriest minutiæ of experience, which it reproduces and constructs in fresh and fresh wholes; not the habitual confusion of provable fact with the fictions of fancy and transient inclination, but a breadth of ideal association which informs every material object, every incidental fact with far-reaching memories and storied residues of passion, bringing into new light the less obvious relations to human existence.” HumansFactsLightPassionEnergyImaginationMemoriesPowerfulExistenceFictionVisionCreativeObjectsMaterialsIdealsRelationObviousIntenseConfusionFancyReachingFedsAssociationInwardRepresentationConstructsInclinationHuman ExistenceHabitualTransientBreadthCreative EnergySusceptibility Author:George Eliot
“We shall not read it for its sociological insights, which are non-existent, nor as science fiction, because it has a general air of implausibility; but there is one high poetic fancy in the New Atlantis that stays in the mind after all its fancies and inventions have been forgotten. In the New Atlantis, an island kingdom lying in very distant seas, the only commodity of external trade is light: Bacon's own special light, the light of understanding.” MindHas BeensLightLyingUnderstandingFictionAirSeaSpecialTradeScience FictionForgottenInsightInventionKingdomsIslandsFancyPoeticCommodityAtlantisSociological Author:Peter Medawar
“the habit of generalizing from one particular, that mainstay of the cheap and obvious essayist, has rooted many fictions in the public eye. Nothing, for example can blot from my memory the profound, searching, and exhaustive analysis of a great nation which I learned in my small geography when I was a child, namely, 'The French are a gay and polite people fond of dancing and light wines.” PeopleChildrenLightEyeNationsMemoriesFictionExampleParticularHabitGayWineDancingProfoundObviousAnalysisRootedPoliteGeographyGreat NationsPublic EyeEssayists Author:Kate Douglas Wiggin
“History presents the pleasantest features of poetry and fiction,--the majesty of the epic, the moving accidents of the drama, the surprises and moral of the romance. Wallace is a ruder Hector; Robinson Crusoe is not stranger that Croesus; the Knights of Ashby never burnish the page of Scott with richer lights of lance and armor than the Carthaginians, winding down the Alps, cast upon Livy.” LightRomanceMovingFictionMoralHistoryDramaPagesSurpriseCastsStrangerAccidentsFeaturesEpicMajestyKnightsArmorAlpsHectorRobinson CrusoeWinding Down Book:Pleasures of Literature Source: Pleasures of Literature
“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
“The human race will disappear. Other races will appear and disappear in turn. The sky will become icy and void, pierced by the feeble light of half-dead stars. Which will also disappear. Everything will disappear. And what human beings do is just as free of sense as the free motion of elementary particles. Good, evil, morality, feelings? Pure 'Victorian fictions'. Only egotism exists.” HumansFeelingsLightTurnsEvilStarsHuman BeingsRaceHalfFictionSkyMoralityPureDisappearHuman RaceVoidParticlesEgotismVictorianIcyGood Evil Author:H. P. Lovecraft
“In a brilliant fusion of fact and fiction, Jayne Anne Phillips has written the novel of the year. It's the story of a serial killer's crimes and capture, yes, but it's also a compulsively readable story of how one brave woman faces up to acts of terrible violence in order to create something good and strong in the aftermath. Quiet Dell will be compared to In Cold Blood, but Phillips offers something Capote could not: a heroine who lights up the dark places and gives us hope in our humanity.” GivingYearsFactsStoriesLightFacesHumanityOrderStrongDarkFictionNovelViolenceWrittenBloodCrimeColdTerribleOffersQuietBraveBrilliantCaptureKillersHeroinesSerialsLight UpAftermathFusionSerial KillerDark PlacesDellBrave WomenFact And Fiction Author:Stephen King
“Fiction is an elemental force, which has the power to shape reality in its own image - or images, I should say - because reality, like light, exists not only as a single point or particle, but also as an array of possibilities.” ShouldRealityLightForceFictionPossibilityShapesParticlesElementals Author:Ruth Ozeki
“Today, we know that time travel need not be confined to myths, science fiction, Hollywood movies, or even speculation by theoretical physicists. Time travel is possible. For example, an object traveling at high speeds ages more slowly than a stationary object. This means that if you were to travel into outer space and return, moving close to light speed, you could travel thousands of years into the Earth's future.” IfsKnowsNeedsYearsMeanLightAgeTodayEarthMovingSpaceFictionExampleObjectsReturnHollywoodScience FictionSpeedMythTime TravelSpeculationPhysicistTheoreticalConfinedOuter SpaceHigh SpeedHollywood MoviesStationary Book:Time: A Traveler's Guide Source: Time: A Traveler's Guide
“I would write light entertainment nonfiction pieces during the day, then come home and work on my fantasy fiction. It was very difficult to get out of the one mindset and into another one.” WritingHomeLightDifficultFictionFantasyPiecesEntertainmentMindsetComing HomeNonfiction Author:Cassandra Clare
“I was on a panel with light skinned Blacks and a famous gay science fiction writer, who were complaining about how Blacks are against gays and light skinned Blacks and how intolerant Blacks are of different groups. My position was that Blacks were among the most humanistic, tolerant groups in the country and that across the street from my house in Oakland was one inhabited by White gays.” DifferentCountryLightHouseWhiteFictionGroupsStreetsPositionGayScience FictionComplainingFiction WritersHumanisticOakland Author:Ishmael Reed
“It's just science fiction so it's allowed to be silly, and childish, and stupid. It's just science fiction, so it doesn't have to make sense. It's just science fiction, so you must ask nothing more of it than loud noises and flashing lights.” LightAsksFictionStupidScience FictionSillyNoiseMake SenseLoudBeing SillyLoud NoisesFlashing Lights Author:Isaac Asimov
“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
“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