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Literary Fiction Quotes

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Literary Fiction Quotes

“Over the years Breece had lectured that truth was liquid. That it evaporated in the heat of passion, froze in the cold of fear, and bent itself around virginous, unpurposeful fibs. It could churn and pull you under, drown you in itself, or let you ride upon it like a surf. But truth was always relfective. It showed blackheads and blemishes, fat rolls and sags, scabs and scars. Truth was fearful, angry and dangerous, and that was why so many people did their utmost to avoid it.”

“Elsa's mother no longer spoke to her of men and love, but of duty and fate and accepting one’s burden. As far as Elsa could tell, if love really was the inherited female domain, then women were saddled with the biggest burden of all. It was pressing down upon them, the way the sea pressed down upon the creatures of the deep.”

“I thought of my mom, sitting on the sofa on a rainy Saturday afternoon, watching cable reruns of her favorite Little House on the Prairie series. Sometimes she'd cry. She would hold onto a tissue, and she would sob as she sat there on the couch. I asked her once why she was crying. She told me it was because the show made her happy.”

“Now when the men talk, their voices burn in the air, making smoke all over the place. We hear about change, about new country, about democracy, about elections and what-what. They talk and talk, the men, lick their lips and look at the dead watches on their wrists and shake their hands and slap each other and laugh like they have swallowed thunder.”

“Love takes no pause and nor should one, if given this, a chance of into heaven glimpsed. For like life, fickle can love be; like time, waits on none to come or be undone. When nothing makes sense, illogical is the sense, for nothing without purpose, these tempestuous life journeys always have a reason, though the “why” of it may not be seen immediately.”

“Then the fight came to her chest, to her throat. She thrust her heel against the ground and stood with violence. 'Give him back! I know you're listening! Give him back to me now!' Storming out of the clearing, across the field, two fists ready, the sharpest teeth for biting. Sending all the rabbits out of sight.”

“Convincing all nations in the civilized world to agree that any investments into these corporations should be tax-free was not an easy task. Tea with the Queen didn’t quite cut it. Saki with the Japanese Prime Minister was pleasant, but not quite enough. We had to offer major trade concessions to our partner nations to bring them to the negotiating table. In retrospect, it was a small price to pay. The talks earned me the title of “The Great Negotiator.” I didn't mind.”

“There is nothing like the feeling of suddenly knowing you have found something that you did not even realize you had been searching for your entire life. It is not something that jumps out at you, but instead quietly creeps into your soul, and without conscious thought it embeds itself gently into your heart. It whispers strange and soothing calm from the inside out, until you finally realize that something has changed, and that change is nothing to be afraid of, instead to be embraced, like the warm embrace of a long-awaited hug you did not even know you needed welcoming you home.”

“The problem with a lot of people who read only literary fiction is that they assume fantasy is just books about orcs and goblins and dragons and wizards and bullshit. And to be fair, a lot of fantasy is about that stuff. The problem with people in fantasy is they believe that literary fiction is just stories about a guy drinking tea and staring out the window at the rain while he thinks about his mother. And the truth is a lot of literary fiction is just that. Like, kind of pointless, angsty, emo, masturbatory bullshit. However, we should not be judged by our lowest common denominators. And also you should not fall prey to the fallacious thinking that literary fiction is literary and all other genres are genre. Literary fiction is a genre, and I will fight to the death anyone who denies this very self-evident truth. So, is there a lot of fantasy that is raw shit out there? Absolutely, absolutely, it’s popcorn reading at best. But you can’t deny that a lot of lit fic is also shit. 85% of everything in the world is shit. We judge by the best. And there is some truly excellent fantasy out there. For example, Midsummer Night’s Dream; Hamlet with the ghost; Macbeth, ghosts and witches; I’m also fond of the Odyessey; Most of the Pentateuch in the Old Testament, Gargantua and Pantagruel. Honestly, fantasy existed before lit fic, and if you deny those roots you’re pruning yourself so closely that you can’t help but wither and die.”

“I sat in front of the TV hour after hour watching the news about how Trump was fucking up the government’s response to the spreading corona virus infection. Why didn’t he invoke the federal government’s power under the Defense Production Act as soon as the virus hit Washington State? All the experts knew how fast-spreading and dangerous this corona virus could be? Instead, he ignores the CDC’s advice and downplays the risk to the nation’s health. Not until mid April, when it’s way too late, does Trump finally use some of the government’s power under the DPA, and even then it’s a half-assed measure. Not enough testing, not enough ventilators, not enough PPE, not enough swabs. The number of infections kept rising. By the end of March the US led the world in infections and deaths caused by the virus. What does Trump do? He refuses to wear a mask. He’s not going to look like a weakling. Testing? Overrated. It increases the number of infections. Why doesn’t the country have enough PPE and ventilators? Obama’s fault. The President is in charge, but if there’s any failure, it’s the fault of governors and mayors. He keeps repeating his mantra, “The situation is under control.” Pence’s team will whip the virus. Or was it Jared’s team? This virus isn’t as bad as the flu. America always wins. Doesn’t matter who or what the enemy is, we always triumph. We’re going to kill that little bug. Those people wearing masks are doing it to spite me, Donald J. Trump, the greatest President in history. “The situation is under control.” But the deaths keep mounting. It surpasses annual deaths from auto accidents, 34,000. It surpasses US deaths in the Vietnam War, 58,000. Next, it’s going to surpass total deaths of US soldiers in World War I, 116,500, and it’s not going to stop there. What the fuck!? This is the United States of America! We’re supposed to have the best healthcare in the world, the best of everything. We’re Number One! Yeah, Trump made America great again. He said with him as President America would win so much we’d get tired of winning. Right on, man! We are Number One – in corona virus infections and deaths! After spending all day switching back and forth among the cable news networks on TV, I’d turn off the television and get on my laptop and rant on Twitter about what an idiot the President was. That was my life during the lockdown. From "Anarchist, Republican... Assassin”

“Dear friends and readers, I am happy to announce that my newest novel, TORN, will be released on September 17, 2025! For those who know me well, you may be thinking to yourself, “Didn’t you say you were done with this whole Books of Furnass enterprise?” And you would be correct. I was finished once and for all, until a friend said, “Isn’t there more to the story?” Intrigued, I got back to work, and the untold story of John Lincoln Lyle’s disappearance and return to Furnass 20 years later was the result. Watch for future posts with details about the plots, excerpts of critics' reviews, and our plans to promote the book coming soon. As always, thank you for your interest and support.”

“Ladies and Gentlemen, your history starts with your mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers. You may be swimming against the stream, or you may be holding on to those very roots, but whatever you are doing, you are never without them. Your lives are a reaction to them, good or bad; every love story contains six people from the very beginning, in one form or another. Replicate them, get rid of them, but they existed, and cutting off their influence is a lifelong struggle that not all of us survive wholeheartedly.”

“I’ve been told that I cannot change shit, so I might as well stop torturing myself. My emotions are ridiculed and branded as childish. I have been told that the world has given up on my people. I have been told, and realise that on many occasions, I myself am viewed as an outcast by some of those suffering. I’ve been confronted and my answer is always the same: I care even in my most fucked-up moments. I care even when gates of shit pour open to drown me; I care because I am a citizen of the world.”

“For I’m neither a submitter nor a hating retaliator, I acknowledge the boundaries of my existence; yet, I still care. I care regardless of the way they choose to reduce me to the brand that is the birthmark of the accident of my conception. I care less about what that brand signifies in terms of my character, potential, and intentions. For the harmed I care. For the real victims. It’s the most basic of my mandatory civil duties. Only in caring, am I a citizen of the world.”

“As a citizen of the world, it’s my instinct to keep the fallen and the suffering in my thoughts. The human brain fascinates me; its limitless bounds of empathy. You see, in my mind there is logic to it: do no harm, prevent harm, help, support, care for the harmed, face the harmer. My stupid idealist conscience considers sympathy, not pity, at its worst, the most basic and the least negotiable civil duty. Of course as a citizen of the world, I should strive to do more. That said, I am only a man and so I often do the least.”

“As a citizen of the world, it’s my instinct to keep the fallen and the suffering in my thoughts... You see, in my mind there is logic to it: do no harm, prevent harm, help, support, care for the harmed, face the harmer. My stupid idealist conscience considers sympathy, not pity, at its worst, the most basic and the least negotiable civil duty. Of course as a citizen of the world, I should strive to do more. That said, I am only a man and so I often do the least.”

“The monk wakes from a dream into a world of mists and thunderclouds. The clouds play children's games with him. They show him dissolving images of yaks and sheep, serpents and hawks, angels and dragons. He closes his eyes and the clouds count to ten. He opens his eyes and they look for him.”