“Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible; Shakespeare's plays, for instance, seem to hang there complete by themselves. But when the web is pulled askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the middle, one remembers that these webs are not spun in midair by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to the grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.” WritingHumansStillsPlaySeemsRememberSufferingHouseHuman BeingsFictionFourMiddleMaterialsCreaturesEdgesCornersInstanceAttachmentTornSpidersHookedMaterial ThingsSpunShakespeare's Plays Author:Virginia Woolf
“Among its many other obligations, fiction always has to be believable. Life does not have to suffer such constraint, and much of what takes place is believable only because it happens.” DoeHappensSufferingFictionObligationConstraintsBelievable Book:Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories Source: Creatures of the Earth: New and Selected Stories
“I can't imagine turning into one of those codgers who no longer reads fiction. I'm regularly stirred by it and suffer no anxiety of influence. Influence me! That was my credo then, as I was developing and learning, and remains so now, as I'm developing and learning.” I CanSufferingFictionImagineInfluenceAnxietyRemainsDevelopingCredo Author:Adam Ross