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Serious Quotes

“I finally decided one day, reading science fiction magazines of the time, I could do at least as well as some of these people are doing. So I finally made a serious effort.”

People Wells Made Reading Literature Effort Fiction Serious One Day Decided Science Fiction Magazines

Author:Fred Saberhagen

“There's a tradition in American fiction that is deadly serious and earnest - like the Steinbeckian social novel.”

Social Fiction Novel Serious Tradition Earnest

Author:John Hodgman

“Until recently we’ve only been able to speculate about story's persuasive effects. But over the last several decades psychology has begun a serious study of how story affects the human mind. Results repeatedly show that our attitudes, fears, hopes, and values are strongly influenced by story. In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than writing that is specifically designed to persuade through argument and evidence.”

Writing Mind Humans Facts Stories Shows Seems Able Lasts Values Belief Results Attitude Fiction Study Psychology Effects Serious Evidence Argument Decades Human Mind Persuasive

Author:Jonathan Gottschall

“The private and serious drama of guilt is not often a useful one for fiction today and its disappearance, following perhaps the disappearance from life, appears as a natural, almost unnoticed relief, like some of the challenging illnesses wiped out by drug and vaccines.”

Today Natural Challenges Fiction Serious Drama Drug Guilt Illness Following Relief Vaccines Unnoticed Disappearance

Book:Bartleby in Manhattan, and Other Essays

Source: Bartleby in Manhattan, and Other Essays

“Science fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is in fact going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this vast sack, this belly of the universe, this womb of things to be and tomb of things that were, this unending story.”

People Way Feels Trying Facts Stories Universe Fiction Serious Science Fiction Relate Belly Womb Tombs Unending

Book:Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places

Source: Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places

“Let me roughly divide books into those which compete with the movies and those with which the movies cannot compete. They are the books that can elevate or instruct. If they are fine works of fiction, they can deepen your appreciation of human life. If they are serious works of nonfiction, they can inform or enlighten you.”

Ifs Humans Book Fiction Serious Fine Let Me Appreciation Human Life Divides Nonfiction Enlightening Serious Work

Author:Mortimer Adler

“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

“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.”

“By and large, serious fiction was the work of victims who portrayed victims for an audience of victims who, it was oddly assumed, would want to see their lives realistically portrayed.”

Want Fiction Audience Serious Victim

Book:Screening history

Source: Screening history

“When we look at a good deal of serious modern fiction, and particularly Southern fiction, we find this quality about it that is generally described, in a pejorative sense, as grotesque. Of course, I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.... Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.”

Writing Looks Stills Able Courses Found Deals Fiction Quality Cases Modern Serious Reader South Realistic Southern Freak Grotesque

Author:Flannery O'Connor

“It's my experience that people don't think of fiction writing as being as intellectually serious as other kinds of writing in academia and so without a career as a critic or essayist you can be treated as something of a spiritual medium - a fraud - for "just" writing fiction.”

People Thinking Writing Kind Spiritual Fiction Careers Serious Critics Treated Mediums Fraud Academia Fiction Writing Writing Fiction Essayists

Author:Alexander Chee

“Kids are growing up and they don't know the difference between fact and fiction. The line is getting blurry. I can handle it, you know; I'm a big boy. And the entertainment industry has always been crazy. But the problem is, it spills over into some very serious issues, in politics and real newsworthy stuff.”

“Many Americans have never owned a book. And others have never owned a non-fiction book. Providing them with a 300-page paperback would get them started, maybe. And even if it didn't, at least they'd own that one. So that's a serious problem.”

Ifs Book Problem Fiction Serious Pages Providing Non Fiction

Author:James W. Loewen

“There are some serious limitations in Mo Yan's situation as a writer in China today - just as there are for Jia Zhangke, one of the world's greatest film directors. He can only phrase his dissent obliquely, in his art. Writers in "free" societies labor under no such constraints. They can write more or less whatever they want in both their fiction and their commentary. Yet so many of them look oddly inhibited, even timid, and depressingly a couple of prominent figures actually positioned themselves to the right of their governments, intelligence agencies, and corporations.”

“I certainly wake up every morning and thank God that I'm not a novelist because the theater is tough, but novel writing is infinitely harder. Especially with the economics of serious fiction being what they are in America.”

Writing America Fiction Morning Novel Serious Tough Economics Harder Wake Up Theater Novelists Thank God Every Morning Novel Writing

Author:Tony Kushner