Best fiction & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“You can never properly predict the future as it really turns out. So you are doing something a little different when you write science fiction. You are trying to take a different perspective on now.”

Writing Trying Littles Different Turns Fiction Perspective Science Fiction Different Perspective

Author:Kim Stanley

“I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer.”

Writing Fiction Novel Preacher Fiction Writers

Author:Ursula K. Le Guin

“I have turned away from the thought of writing fiction in the past through what I suppose is, actually, fear. The direct, raw invitation for the reader to come in and explore my imagination is fairly scary for me so I have busied myself with so much else.”

Writing Past Imagination Fiction Reader Direct Scary My Imagination Invitations Writing Fiction

Author:Dawn French

“The desire to confess ... lies at the root of most fiction writing.”

Writing Lying Desire Fiction Roots Fiction Writing

Author:Lucy Poate Stebbins

“'Divergent' was my utopian world. I mean, that wasn't the plan. I never even set out to write dystopian fiction, that's just what I had when I was finished. At the beginning, I was just writing about a place I found interesting and a character with a compelling story, and as I began to build the world, I realized that it was my utopia.”

World Writing Mean Character Stories Found Interesting Fiction Plans Finished I Realized Compelling Dystopian Utopia Divergent Utopian Dystopian Fiction

Author:Veronica Roth

“I write poetry anyway and have for years and years. For me, putting fiction and poetry together is like the best of both worlds.”

World Writing Years Together Fiction Best Of Both Worlds

Author:Ellen Hopkins

“I could never write about strange kingdoms. I could never do Harry Potter or anything like that. Even when I did science-fiction, I didnt write about foreign planets and distant futures. I certainly never did fantasies about trolls living under bridges.”

Writing Fiction Fantasy Strange Planets Science Fiction Kingdoms Bridges Harry Potter Potters Troll

Author:Richard Matheson

“Fiction writing feels more honest to me.”

Feels Writing Fiction Honest Fiction Writing

Book:God Laughs & Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right

Source: God Laughs & Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right

“I was just about to begin writing Mirror Mirror, within about a week of it, when September 11, 2001 happened. I found myself incapable of caring about fiction-making for a number of months.”

Writing Found Numbers Fiction Happened Week Months Mirrors Caring September Incapable September 11 September 11 2001

Author:Gregory Maguire

“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.”

Ifs Writing Firsts May Self Reading Born Fiction Class Teach Reader Wide Urges Self Knowledge Fiction Writers Reading Fiction

Author:Cynthia Ozick

“The biggest challenge of my career, which is something that authors of genre fiction face all the time, is writing something fresh and new and at the same time meeting reader expectations.”

Writing Faces Challenges Fiction Careers Reader Expectations Meetings Genre

Author:Julia Quinn

“Believe it or not, friendships are difficult to write in fiction. They can easily come across as forced, particularly if they involve too much explication and too many overt gestures of affection.”

Ifs Writing Believe Difficult Fiction Too Much Affection Gestures Not Friends

Author:Steven Erikson

“The difference between travel writing as fiction is the difference between recording what the eye sees and discovering what the imagination knows. Fiction is pure joy - how sad that I could not reinvent the trip as fiction.”

Knows Writing Eye Joy Imagination Differences Fiction Pure Discovering Travel Writing Pure Joy

Book:The Great Railway Bazaar

Source: The Great Railway Bazaar

“Writing fiction is like music. You have to keep it moving. You can have slow movements but there has to be a sense of momentum, of going someplace. You hear a snatch of Beethoven and it has a sense of momentum that is unmistakably his. That's a nice quality if you can do it in fiction.”

Ifs Writing Moving Can Do Fiction Quality Nice Movement You Can Do It Momentum Writing Fiction Keep It Moving

Author:John Updike

“I write my first draft by hand, at least for fiction. For non-fiction, I write happily on a computer, but for fiction I write by hand, because I'm trying to achieve a kind of thoughtless state, or an unconscious instinctive state. I'm not reading what I write when I wrote. It's an unconscious outpouring that's a mess, and it's many, many steps away from anything anyone would want to read. Creating that way seems to generate the most interesting material for me to work with, though.”

Way Want Writing Trying Firsts Kind States Hands Seems Reading Interesting Fiction Steps Achieve Materials Computer Creating Mess Unconscious Most Interesting Non Fiction

Author:Jennifer Egan

“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.”

Thinking Knows Way Want Writing Self Faces Wish Deals Powerful Fiction Gone Clear Doubt Theory Intellectual Tools Institutions Discrimination Most Powerful Non Fiction Self-doubt

Author:Bell Hooks

“I personally have a great deal of respect for readers. I have a great deal of respect for the human race. I think most people can tell the difference between fiction and fact. I think that the action of writing about something does not condone it. The best thing I can ever hope to do is provide good questions, and I think I do that. I hope I do.”

People Thinking Writing Humans Doe I Can Facts Action Differences Deals Race Fiction Reader Best Things Human Race Good Questions

Author:Neil Gaiman

“It took seven years from the day I decided I wanted to write fiction to actually getting a book published.”

Writing Years Book Wanted Fiction Decided Seven Seven Years

Author:Cynthia Kadohata

“Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing, but you are not addressing other people as 'I' - you are inhabiting that 'I.'”

People Writing Firsts Persons Different Fiction Narrative Intimate Different Things Autobiography First Person First Person Narrative

Author:Kate Atkinson

“I took a couple of creative writing classes with Joyce Carol Oates at Princeton University, and in my senior year there, I took a long fiction workshop with Toni Morrison. I fell in love with it.”

Writing Years Long Fiction Class Creative Couple University Senior Creative Writing Workshops Carols Joyce Princeton Senior Year Princeton University

Author:Mohsin Hamid

“Writing is such a solitary thing, so its nice, when Im discouraged, to see people still have such faith in fiction.”

People Writing Stills Fiction Nice Solitary Discouraged

Author:Robert Boswell

“I was an outsider, never quite part of what was going on, always looking in. It turned out to be great preparation for writing fiction.”

Writing Fiction Preparation Outsiders Never Quit Writing Fiction

Author:Hallie Ephron

“I stopped writing short fiction early on - I was never really good at it, and I never liked the results. So I stopped trying to fit the material I was working with into these tidy little short fiction packages.”

Writing Trying Littles Results Fiction Materials Fit Packages Tidy Writing Short

Author:Susan Choi

“Fact-checking is so boring compared to writing fiction.”

Writing Facts Fiction Boring Writing Fiction So Boring

Author:Francine Prose

“Science fiction offers an intensely bracing angle of view for writers to adopt, especially in a time of constant innovation and crisis, and it is a scandal that in 1999 so many writers have written it and continue to write it in obscurity.”

Writing Views Fiction Written Offers Innovation Crisis Science Fiction Constant Angle Scandal Obscurity

Author:John Clute

“From my years of teaching creative writing, I know that new writers take the setting for granted, as simply a place to set the action, but setting is a vital element in fiction writing and deserves serious treatment.”

Knows Writing Years Action Fiction Creative Teaching Serious Elements Deserve Setting Settings Granted Treatment Creative Writing Fiction Writing

Author:Garry Disher

“I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.”

People Writing Literature Fiction Fantasy Objects Horror Research Science Fiction Non Fiction

Author:Laurell K. Hamilton

“A lot of crime fiction writing is also lazy. Personality is supposed to be shown by the protagonists taste in music, or were told that the hero looks like the young Cary Grant. Film is the medium these writers are looking for.”

Writing Looks Film Young Fiction Crime Personality Hero Taste Mediums Supposed To Be Lazy Grants Crime Fiction Fiction Writing Protagonists Taste In Music

Author:Peter Temple

“Increasingly, those who used to teach and write critical or theoretical texts are writing fiction, poetry and so on; and kinds of texts are being produced that call for budding readers rather different from those who studied literature in the past.”

Writing Kind Different Past Used Poetry Literature Fiction Teach Reader Critical Theoretical Writing Fiction

Author:Nicholas Royle

“My writing of fiction comes under a very general heading of those teachers, critics, scholars who like to try their own hand once or twice in their lives.”

Writing Trying Hands Fiction Teacher Critics Scholar Headings

Author:George Steiner

“And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.”

Ifs Writing Littles Philosophy Care Reading Sex Fiction Novel Violence Clothes Notes Guilty Description Plot Advancement Cliffs Advancing Feasting Reading Fiction

Author:George R. R. Martin

“I was trained mainly as a short story writer and that's how I started writing, but I've also become very interested in non-fiction, just because I got a couple of magazine jobs when I was really poor and needed the money and it turned out that non-fiction was much more interesting than I thought it was.”

Writing Stories Jobs Interesting Poor Fiction Couple Needed Magazines Short Story Non Fiction Story Writers

Author:David Foster Wallace

“I never have an alter ego in the movies. That's a fiction that the press has made up over the years, and it's fun to write that. It gives them something to write.”

Giving Writing Years Made Fun Fiction Ego Presses Alter Ego

Author:Woody Allen

“There is no such thing as too ordinary to write about, whether that's life or a scene in a novel. What's interesting to people, whether it's memoir or fiction, is the truth.”

People Writing Interesting Fiction Novel Scene Ordinary Memoir

Author:Augusten Burroughs

“I have not much faith in women in fiction.... Women are so horribly subjective and they have such scorn for the healthy commonplace. When a woman writes a story of adventure, a stout sea tale, a manly battle yarn, anything without wine, women, and love, then I will begin to hope for something great from them, not before.”

Writing Stories Women Fiction Sea Adventure Healthy Battle And Love Wine Tales Subjective Scorn Commonplace Manly Stout Yarn

Book:Willa Cather

Source: Willa Cather

“No one can write a best-seller by taking thought. The slightest touch of insincerity blurs its appeal. The writer who keeps his tongue in his cheek, who knows that he is writing for fools and that, therefore, he had better write like a fool, makes a respectable living out of serials and novelettes; but he will never make the vast, the blaring, half a million success. That comes of blended sincerity and vitality.”

Knows Writing Half Fiction Millions Fool Tongue Appeals Sincerity Cheeks Vitality Respectable Serials Blur Sellers Insincerity Best Sellers

Author:Rebecca West

“Although the primitive in art may be both interesting and impressive, as portrayed in American fiction it is conspicuous for dullness alone. Drab persons living drab lives, observed by drab minds and reported in drab writing.”

Writing Mind May Persons Art Artist Interesting Fiction Primitive Impressive Dullness

Author:Ellen Glasgow

“What is most appalling in an F. Scott Fitzgerald book is that it is peopleless fiction: Fitzgerald writes about spectral, muscledsuits; dresses, hats, and sleeves which have some sort of vague, libidinous throb. These are plainly the product of sickness.”

Writing Book Fiction Products Dresses Sickness Hats Vague Sleeves Scott Fitzgerald

Book:Alms for Oblivion

Source: Alms for Oblivion

“Ruy-Sanchez's works of fiction are always amazing: adventure, poetry and intelligence in a new geometry of words... His writing has nerve and agility, his intelligence is sharp without being cruel, his mood is sympathetic without complicity.”

Writing Fiction Adventure Mood Nerves Sympathetic Geometry Complicity Agility

Author:Octavio Paz

“If I write nothing but fiction for some time I begin to get stupid, and to feel rather as if it had been a long meal of sweets; then history is a rest, for research or narration brings a different part of the mind into play.”

Ifs Feels Writing Mind Long Different Play Fiction Stupid Sweet Research Meals Narration

Author:Charlotte Mary Yonge

“I honestly believe that everything I know about the writing of non-fiction (or writing) could be engraved on the head of a pin with a garden hoe.”

Knows Writing Believe Fiction Garden Honestly Pins Non Fiction Engraved Hoe

Author:M. F. K. Fisher

“The competition for the future of crime fiction is fierce, as it should be, but don't take your eyes off Craig McDonald. He's wily, talented and-rarest of the rare-a true original. He writes melancholy poetry that actually has melancholy poets wandering around, but don't turn your backs on them, either. I am always eager to see what he's going to do next.”

Should Writing Eye Turns Next Fiction Crime Poet Originals Competition Wander Melancholy Fierce Crime Fiction Mcdonalds Wandering Around

Author:Laura Lippman

“You can't write good satirical fiction in America because reality will quickly outdo anything you might invent.”

Writing Reality Might America Fiction Satirical

Author:Philip Roth

“Fiction is lies; we're writing about people who never existed and events that never happened when we write fiction, whether its science fiction or fantasy or western mystery stories or so-called literary stories. All those things are essentially untrue. But it has to have a truth at the core of it.”

People Writing Stories Lying Fiction Fantasy Happened Mystery Events Science Fiction Western Core Untrue

Author:George R. R. Martin

“Lester del Rey told me repeatedly that the first and most important part of writing fiction is just to think about the story. Don't write anything down. Don't try to pull anything together right away. Just dream for a while and see what happens. There isn't any timetable involved, no measuring stick for how long it ought to take. For each book, it is different. But that period of thinking, of reflection, is crucial to how successful your story will turn out to be.”

“This sounds like a cliche, but I always wanted to write. After college, I did some writing and realized very quickly that it's hard to make a living as a writer. At that point, I was more interested in fiction writing.”

Writing Hard Wanted Sound Fiction College Cliche Fiction Writing

Author:Hooman Majd

“On Stranger Than Fiction, the script was so good that I stuck to every line because it was just such brilliant writing from Zach Helm that I felt like I really just want to shoot the page.”

Want Writing Felt Lines Fiction Pages Scripts Stranger Brilliant Stuck Helm Stranger Than Fiction

Author:Marc Forster

“A couple of pieces of advice for the kids who are serious about writing are: first of all, to read everything you can get your hands on so you can become familiar with different forms of writing: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism. That's very important. And also keep a journal. Not so much, because it's good writing practice. Although it is, but more because it's a wonderful source of story starters.”

“I love writing fiction because I can totally lose myself and I get to make up the rules of the world that I'm writing.”

World Writing I Can Loses Fiction Because I Can Writing Fiction

Author:Roxane Gay

“If you're writing fiction, you're dealing with characters who, themselves, will have heartfelt sentiments but who, themselves, live in this culture right now and thus face all the impediments to sort of dealing with those parts of their lives that, you know, that we did. So it would be not only silly but unrealistic to have a character saying that kind of stuff.”

Ifs Knows Writing Kind Character Would Be Faces Culture Stuff Fiction Right Now Silly Sentiments Heartfelt Writing Fiction Impediments

Author:David Foster Wallace

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Fiction Quotes