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Fiction Quotes

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Fiction Quotes

“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.”

“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.”

Mind Has Beens Light Lying Understanding Fiction Air Sea Special Trade Science Fiction Forgotten Insight Invention Kingdoms Islands Fancy Poetic Commodity Atlantis Sociological

Author:Peter Medawar

“Novels are political not because writers carry party cards -- some do, I do not -- but because good fiction is about identifying with and understanding people who are not necessarily like us. By nature all good novels are political because identifying with the other is political. At the heart of the 'art of the novel' lies the human capacity to see the world through others' eyes. Compassion is the greatest strength of the novelist.”

People World Humans Heart Art Eye Political Lying Understanding Party Fiction Compassion Novel Capacity Cards Novelists Identifying Human Capacity

Author:Orhan Pamuk

“Fiction stretches our sensibilities and our understanding, as mere information never can.”

Literature Understanding Fiction Information Mere Sensibility

Author:Fay Weldon

“Fiction is truth. I think fiction is the truest thing there ever was. My whole effort is to remove that distinction. The writer is the midwife of understanding. It's very important for me to tell politics like a story, to make it real.”

Thinking Important Real Whole Stories Understanding Effort Fiction Distinction Remove Truest Midwife

Author:Arundhati Roy

“The philosopher, who with calm suspicion examines the dreams and omens, the miracles and prodigies, of profane or even of ecclesiastical history, will probably conclude that, if the eyes of the spectators have sometimes been deceived by fraud, the understanding of the readers has much more frequently been insulted by fiction.”

Source: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V2: the History Focus

“... But all the feelings that evoke in us the joy or the misfortune of a real person are only produced in us through the intermediary of an image of that joy or that misfortune; the ingeniousness of the first novelist was in understanding that, in the apparatus of our emotions, since the image is the only essential element, the simplification which consists of purely and simply suppressing the factual characters is a definitive improvement.”

Firsts Persons Real Character Feelings Joy Understanding Emotion Fiction Essentials Elements Improvement Novelists Misfortunes Evoke Factual Real Person Simplification Suppressing

Author:Marcel Proust

“I've always felt that no one understands why some books of non-fiction endure and some don't, because there's not much understanding among many non-fiction writers that the narrative is terribly important.”

Important Book Felt Understanding Fiction Endure Narrative Non Fiction Fiction Writers

Author:Robert Caro

“Who reads short stories? one is asked, and I like to think that they are read by men and women in the dentist's office, waiting to be called to the chair; they are read on transcontinental plane trips instead of watching banal and vulgar films spin out the time between our coasts; they are read by discerning and well-informed men and women who seem to feel that narrative fiction can contribute to our understanding of one another and the sometimes bewildering world around us.”

Source: John Cheever: Collected Stories and Other Writings

“With a historical novel you know that liberties are being taken. Since Walter Scott, we know that poetic license, dramatic license, that events been conflated and that liberties have been taken, characters ditto, dates rearranged. But people don't seem to understand that movies are fictions, they are dramatizations, at least historical movies, and we should accord the moviemakers some of the same understanding and latitude. When you go to a movie you know it's a dramatization and not history.”

People Knows Should Has Beens Character Seems Understanding Fiction Liberty Novel Taken Events Historical Dramatic Poetic License Accord Latitude Historical Novels Poetic License

Author:Nicholas Meyer

“A handy short definition of almost all science fiction might read: realistic speculation about possible future events, based solidly on adequate knowledge of the real world, past and present, and on a thorough understanding of the nature and significance of the scientific method.”

“The first movie my dad ever showed me was Predator - I was five. And I think the second one was Jaws. I've has this understanding of fiction for a very, very long time but I've also had this thing where I've idolized the male action heroes because that's what I watched with my dad.”

Thinking Firsts Long Action Understanding Fiction Five Hero Dad Long Time Males My Dad Predator Idolized Action Heroes

Author:Katee Sackhoff

“I think fiction allows you to inhabit new domains and it's you, the reader living in that domain for a few days that results in a deeper understanding as opposed to the novel proclaiming this is what it is right and this is what is wrong.”

Thinking Understanding Results Fiction Novel Reader Deeper Domain Proclaiming Deeper Understanding

Author:Mohsin Hamid

“Whether or not you're writing fiction or you're making sculptures. You're trying to create a space. You're trying to make something where your own epiphanies and your own desires and your own understanding of the world can reveal itself.”

World Writing Trying Desire Understanding Space Fiction Sculpture Epiphany Writing Fiction

Author:Denison Witmer