“If you think of a work of fiction as a kind of scale model of the world, then the positive valences - where things turn out better than you thought they would - ought to be in there somewhere, too.” IfsThinkingWorldKindTurnsFictionOughtModelsScalesBetter Than You Author:George Saunders
“I have been spending the better part of my professional life trying to create self-driving cars. At Google, I am working with a world-class team of engineers to turn science fiction into reality.” WorldTryingHas BeensSelfRealityTurnsFictionClassTeamCarScience FictionSpendingDrivingEngineersGoogleWorld ClassProfessional LifeDriving Cars Author:Sebastian Thrun
“Imagination, it turns out, is a great deal like reporting in your own head. Here is a paradox of fiction-writing. You are crafting something from nothing, which means, in one sense, that none of it is true. Yet in the writing, and perhaps in the reading, some of a character's actions or lines are truer than others.” WritingMeanCharacterActionTurnsReadingImaginationLinesDealsFictionParadoxFiction Writing Author:Amy Waldman
“The writer is often faced with two choices--turn away from the reality of life's intimidating complexity or conquer its mystery by battling with it. The writer who chooses the former soon runs out of energy and produces elegantly tired fiction.” WritingTwoRealityRunningTurnsChoicesEnergyFictionMysteryProduceTiredFormerConquerReality Of LifeComplexityIntimidatingTwo Choices Book:There Was a Country: A Memoir Source: There Was a Country: A Memoir
“The most effective young Facebook users, however -- the ones who will probably be winners if Facebook turns out to be a model of the future they will inhabit as adults -- are the ones who create successful online fictions about themselves.” IfsYoungTurnsFictionSuccessfulModelsAdultsWinnerOnlineUsers Book:You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto Source: You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto
“An intelligent man or woman willing to make a career of reviewing fiction is hard to come by ... And the temporaries do the work cheaply. Moreover, continuity may be got at the expense of intellectual arthritis; a reviewer who has been at his grisly task for half a lifetime may stiffen into prejudices of every sort, and become too anchylosed to do better than turn his back to a new wave when it rushes down on him.” MenMayHas BeensHardTurnsHalfFictionCareersWillingIntellectualTasksPrejudiceIntelligentLifetimeCriticsWaveExpensesContinuityReviewersIntelligent ManArthritis Author:Storm Jameson
“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.” WritingTryingLittlesDifferentTurnsFictionPerspectiveScience FictionDifferent Perspective Author:Kim Stanley
“Good fiction makes me turn off all the other parts of my brain, so that I become quiet and submissive, entirely at the mercy of the work at hand.” HandsTurnsBrainFictionQuietMercyTurn OffSubmissive Author:Gary Shteyngart
“The human race will disappear. Other races will appear and disappear in turn. The sky will become icy and void, pierced by the feeble light of half-dead stars. Which will also disappear. Everything will disappear. And what human beings do is just as free of sense as the free motion of elementary particles. Good, evil, morality, feelings? Pure 'Victorian fictions'. Only egotism exists.” HumansFeelingsLightTurnsEvilStarsHuman BeingsRaceHalfFictionSkyMoralityPureDisappearHuman RaceVoidParticlesEgotismVictorianIcyGood Evil Author:H. P. Lovecraft
“In fiction, as in real life, love might inspire acts that are at best foolish and at worst life-threatening, but in the best romances, love is the final, secret ingredient that turns mere mortals into heroes and heroines.” RealMightRomanceTurnsLove IsSecretFictionWorstInspireHeroMereFinalsFoolishReal LifeMortalsLove LifeIngredientsThreateningHeroinesRomance LoveHeroes And HeroinesMere Mortals Author:Sarah MacLean