“Would-be novelists need to bring equal parts arrogance and ignorance to the task before them. The arrogance is almost self-explanatory. Walk into any bookstore or library, calculate how many lifetimes the average person would need to read all the fiction contained therein. To think that one has anything to contribute, to any genre or tradition, takes genuine hubris.” ThinkingNeedsWritingPersonsSelfWould BeWalksFictionIgnoranceEqualTraditionTasksLifetimeLibraryAverageGenuineGenreNovelistsArroganceBookstoresAverage PersonHubris Author:Laura Lippman
“The Jetsons had them in the 1960s. They were the defining element of 'Knight Rider' in the 1980s: cars that drive themselves. Self-driving cars appear in countless science fiction movies. By Hollywood standards, they are so normal we don't even notice them. But in real life, they still don't exist. What if you could buy one today?” IfsStillsRealSelfTodayFictionCarElementsNormalStandardsHollywoodScience FictionDrivingReal LifeWhat IfDefining1960sKnightsRidersScience Fiction MovieDriving Cars Author:Sebastian Thrun
“I have been spending the better part of my professional life trying to create self-driving cars. At Google, I am working with a world-class team of engineers to turn science fiction into reality.” WorldTryingHas BeensSelfRealityTurnsFictionClassTeamCarScience FictionSpendingDrivingEngineersGoogleWorld ClassProfessional LifeDriving Cars Author:Sebastian Thrun
“...But I don't think I'm the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don't care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution....And I don't want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I'm tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful.” PeopleThinkingWantWritingHumansPersonsBookRealSelfCharacterCareSoundFictionSituationReaderPaperInstitutionsTiredDon't CareMeaningfulReal LifeSuspenseCodeTensionSelf RespectFascinatingThreateningDollsDilemmaI'm TiredImmoralityVictorianNo RespectBooks And MoviesAmorality Author:Olive Ann Burns
“There is more to be pondered in the grain and texture of life than traditional fiction allows. The work of essayists is vital precisely because it permits and encourages self-knowledge in a way that is less indirect than fiction, more open and speculative.” WaySelfFictionTraditionalPermitGrainSelf KnowledgeTextureIndirectEssayists Author:Charles J. Shields
“It seems to me that life's circumstances, being ephemeral, teach us less about durable truths than the fictions based on those truths; and that the best lessons of delicacy and self-respect are to be found in novels where the feelings are so naturally portrayed that you fancy you are witnessing real life as you read.” RealSelfFeelingsSeemsFoundFictionTeachNovelCircumstancesLessonsReal LifeFancySelf RespectEphemeralDelicacy Author:Madame de Stael
“Autobiographies tell more lies than all but the most self-indulgent fiction.” SelfLyingFictionAutobiographyIndulgenceSelf Indulgent Author:A. S. Byatt
“Science fiction, because it ventures into no man's lands, tends to meet some of the requirements posed by Jung in his explorations of archetypes, myth structures and self-understanding. It may be that the primary attraction of science fiction is that it helps us understand what it means to be human.” MenHumansMayMeanSelfHelpingUnderstandingFictionLandScience FictionStructureMythAttractionPrimariesExplorationVentureRequirementsArchetypeJungSelf UnderstandingWhat It Means To Be Human Author:Frank Herbert
“Nearly all the writing of our time is likely to disappear in a hundred years. Certainly most readers - and nearly all critics - feel that [Kurt] Vonnegut started to repeat himself, to grow increasingly self-indulgent and meandering, and to sometimes just blather in his later work. But his books up to "Slaughterhouse-Five" do possess a distinctiveness that will insure some kind of permanence, if only in the history of the 1960s and of science fiction.” IfsFeelsWritingYearsKindBookSelfSometimesGrowsFictionFiveReaderHundredScience FictionCriticsDisappearOur TimeRepeats1960sPermanenceSelf IndulgentSlaughterhousesSlaughterhouse FiveBlather Author:Michael Dirda
“Homo religiosus invents religious symbols, which he venerates and worships to save him from facing the finality of his death and dissolution. He devises paradise fictions to provide succor and support... In acts of supreme self-deception, at various times and in various places he has been willing to profess belief in the most incredible myths because of what they have promised him.” Has BeensSelfBeliefReligiousFictionSupportAtheismWillingWorshipIncrediblesVariousPositive AtheismMythSupremeSymbolsDeceptionParadiseSelf DeceptionDissolutionFinality Author:Paul Kurtz
“We thought a magazine, even a self proclaimed literary review, had to be involved in politics. We felt sex was healthy and made (then) bold use of fiction and graphics so declaring. We operated on a shoestring and still got our issues out on time. In short, we had a ball.” MadeStillsSelfUseSexFeltFictionIssuesInvolvedHealthyBallsMagazinesReviewsDeclaring Author:Barney Rosset
“No one can teach writing, but classes may stimulate the urge to write. If you are born a writer, you will inevitably and helplessly write. A born writer has self-knowledge. Read, read, read. And if you are a fiction writer, dont confine yourself to reading fiction. Every writer is first a wide reader.” IfsWritingFirstsMaySelfReadingBornFictionClassTeachReaderWideUrgesSelf KnowledgeFiction WritersReading Fiction Author:Cynthia Ozick
“Any woman who wishes to be an intellectual, to write non-fiction, to deal with theory, faces a lot of discrimination coming her way and perhaps even self-doubt because there aren't that many who've gone before you. And I think that the most powerful tool we can have is to be clear about our intent. To know what it is we want to do rather than going into institutions thinking that the institution is going to frame for us.” ThinkingKnowsWayWantWritingSelfFacesWishDealsPowerfulFictionGoneClearDoubtTheoryIntellectualToolsInstitutionsDiscriminationMost PowerfulNon FictionSelf-doubt Author:Bell Hooks
“I embrace technology and I just think that in 1984 when James Cameron wrote about the technology, everyone thought he was totally way out there and it was science fiction. Now it's almost reality what he talked about. The machines have taken over, except they have not become self-aware, like in Terminator. So this is really one thing that we have to watch out for, but I think technology is good.” ThinkingWaySelfRealityFictionWatchesTechnologyTakenOne ThingMachinesScience FictionEmbraceCameron Author:Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Metafiction says something. It has to do with taking a large fiction itself and writing within it; that kind of self-reflecting writing that emerges from it can be thought of as metafictional.” WritingKindSelfFictionReflecting Author:Robert Coover
“It takes a certain kind of mind to narrate, to work through character motivation, to be unforgiving to one's writer-self when it comes down to creating the minutiae of detail. Writing fiction requires stamina, a sense of how people's lives work, how people work toward and against one another and, above all, precision.” PeopleWritingMindKindSelfCharacterMotivationCertainFictionCreatingDetailsPrecisionStaminaWriting FictionUnforgivingMinutiae Author:Cate Marvin
“I've always been interested in the form itself, so I always feel like I've never been good at going ahead with the artifice and not acknowledging the self in the artistic process, and not acknowledging the absurdity of pretending that's required in fiction.” FeelsSelfFormProcessFictionArtisticPretendingAbsurdityArtificeArtistic Process Author:Dave Eggers
“As soon as you start doing that - changing things - it seems self-evident to me that you've entered the world of make-believe. If you pretend that it's true, and use your own name, you are misleading people. Fiction is looser and wilder and sometimes in the end more self-revealing, anyway.” PeopleIfsWorldBelieveEndsSelfSometimesUseSeemsNamesFictionEvidentRevealingMisleadMake BelieveWilder Author:Nicholson Baker
“You can start a documentary with just a camera, as opposed to a fiction film where you need actors, a crew, a script, a lot more start-up resources. It may be self-perpetuating.” NeedsMaySelfFilmActorsFictionResourcesCamerasScriptsCrewDocumentariesPerpetuating Author:Thom Powers
“I try to tell student writers to read as much as possible, not only literature but philosophy, theory, and to form obsessions. There's a big taboo in fiction creative writing workshops against using the self at all, and I think I try to encourage students to write the self, but to connect the self to something larger, which is to be this thinking, seeing, searching, eternally curious person, and that writing can come out of investigating and trying to understand confusion, and doubts, and obsessions.” ThinkingWritingTryingPersonsSelfPhilosophyBigsFormLiteratureFictionCreativeDoubtSeeingStudentsTheoryObsessionConfusionCuriousCreative WritingTabooWorkshopsInvestigatingWriting WorkshopEncourage Students Author:Kate Zambreno
“I don't want to write poems that are just really clear about how I'm aware of all the traps involved in writing poetry; I don't want to write fiction that's about the irresponsibility of writing fiction and I've thrown out a lot of writing that I think was ultimately tainted by that kind of self-awareness.” ThinkingWantWritingKindSelfFictionClearAwarenessInvolvedSelf AwarenessThrownTrapsWriting FictionWriting PoetryTaintedIrresponsibility Author:Ben Lerner
“When writers are self-conscious about themselves as writers they often keep a great distance from their characters, sounding as if they were writing encyclopedia entries instead of stories. Their hesitancy about physical and psychological intimacy can be a barrier to vital fiction. Conversely, a narration that makes readers hear the characters' heavy breathing and smell their emotional anguish diminishes distance. Readers feel so close to the characters that, for those magical moments, they become those characters.” IfsFeelsWritingSelfMomentsCharacterStoriesFictionEmotionalReaderConsciousDistanceHeavySmellPsychologicalIntimacyBreathingBarriersAnguishDiminishSelf ConsciousEntryEncyclopediaNarrationMagical Moments Author:Jerome Stern
“Science fiction - and the correct shortcut is 'sf' - uses actual scientific facts or theories for the source ideas or framework of the story. It has some scientific content, however speculative. If it breaks a law of physics, it knows it's doing so and follows up the consequences. If it invents a society of aliens, it does so with some respect for and knowledge of the social sciences and what you might call social probabilities. And some of it is literarily self-aware enough to treat its metaphors as metaphors.” IfsKnowsDoeIdeasSelfEnoughFactsStoriesUseMightLawSocialFictionBreakTheorySourceConsequenceTreatsScience FictionMetaphorPhysicsAliensProbabilityFrameworkShortcutsSocial ScienceLaws Of PhysicsScientific FactsFollow Up Author:Ursula K. Le Guin
“You bet I write disaster fiction. We have compiled a disastrous record on this planet, a record of stupidity and absurdity and self-abuse and self-aggrandizement and self-deception and pompousness and self-righteousness and cruelty and indifference beyond what any other species has demonstrated the capacity for, which is the capacity for all the above.” WritingSelfFictionRecordsPlanetsCapacityAbuseSpeciesStupidityDisasterCrueltyDeceptionIndifferenceRighteousnessAbsurditySelf DeceptionSelf Righteousness Author:John Irving
“I read a lot and fell in love with comics and science fiction. I even self-published some of my comics when I was 16 or 17.” SelfFictionScience Fiction Author:Toni Jerrman
“It is a work of psychogeography, albeit in a less explicit sense than Iain Sinclair's or Will Self's. It had to be fiction though, because I needed that freedom of including whatever belonged, and cutting out whatever didn't. The main fiction in it was matching Julius' generous and self-concealing character to New York's generous and self-concealing character. I think this also adds to my answer about New York's personality in the book.” ThinkingBookSelfCharacterAnswersFictionCuttingNew YorkPersonalityNeededAddIncludingGenerousExplicitMatchingJuliusConcealing Author:Teju Cole
“While the film [Hide and seek] is a work of fiction, I know many people, not just women, who have felt the way my character feels in the film, a certain kind of invisibility. I am grateful that my parents, Bev Umehara and Russell Chang, instilled a healthy sense of self-esteem in me from an early age.” PeopleKnowsWayFeelsKindSelfCharacterAgeFilmCertainFeltParentFictionSelf EsteemHealthyGratefulEsteemSense Of SelfInvisibilityI Am GratefulHide And Seek Author:Garth Kravits
“I think the great unspoken theme in noir fiction is male self-pity. It pervades noir movies.” ThinkingSelfFictionMalesPityThemeSelf PityUnspokenNoir Author:James Ellroy
“I had two competing ambitions when I was a child: I wanted to be a Scientist and Discover Great Things, but I also wanted to be an Author and Write Great Things. I've always tried to combine the analytical with the creative, to some extent or another, because I find it hard to do one without the other. I've worked as a tech journalist, social media consultant, and now am self-publishing fiction.” WritingChildrenTwoSelfHardWantedSocialFictionCreativeMediaAmbitionScientistSocial MediaGreat ThingsJournalistPublishingCompetingConsultants Author:Suw Charman-Anderson
“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
“I've never been much for self-revelation. In two decades of public life, I always approached the limelight with extreme caution. Not that I kept my personal life off-limits; rather, the personal life I put on display was a blend of fact and fiction.” TwoSelfFactsFictionLimitsExtremesDecadesRevelationsDisplayPersonal LifeCautionPublic LifeLimelightSelf RevelationFact And Fiction Author:James McGreevey