Fiction Writing Quotes

• Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that.

  Robert Morgan

  Powerful, Writing, Southern

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• Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

  W. H. Murray

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  168 Copy quote

• Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Nature, Rain, Writing

  65 Copy quote

• No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Reading, Book, Writing

  "The Figure a Poem Makes". Book by Ernest Hemingway, 1939.

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• The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

  Tom Clancy

  Life, Witty, Truth

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.

  Raymond Chandler

  Writing, Gun, Men

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

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• Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret.

  Matthew Arnold

  Writing, Secret, Famous Writers

  Quoted in G.W. E. Russell, Collections and Recollections (1898)

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• Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.

  Harlan Ellison

  Writing, Intelligent, Praise

  50 Copy quote

• Fiction writing is great. You can make up almost anything.

  Ivana Trump

  Funny, Stupid, Inspiration

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• Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.

  Mark Twain

  Truth, Science, Fiction

  Following the Equator ch. 15, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar" (1897) See Byron 33; Chesterton 6

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• Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Writing, Creativity, People

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• I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Funny Life, Writing, Sound

  9 Copy quote
• 

  I love deadlines. I like the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

  Douglas Adams

  Love, Inspirational, Hilarious

  "The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time (Dirk Gently, Book 3)". Book by Douglas Adams, 2002.

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• Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

  Stephen King

  Life, Beautiful, Truth

  Stephen King (2011). “Danse Macabre”, p.430, Simon and Schuster

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• It begins with a character, usually, and once he stands up on his feet and begins to move, all I can do is trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does.

  William Faulkner

  Moving, Writing, Character

  William Faulkner, Joseph L. Fant, Robert Paul Ashley (1964). “Faulkner at West Point”, p.101, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

  Michael Crichton

  Book, Writing, Done

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Character, Passion

  28 Copy quote

• Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Life, Being Alone, Writing

  36 Copy quote

• Writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination.

  Louise Brooks

  Inspiration, Writing, Elimination

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• If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Writing, Odds, Stories

  "King of the Jungle" by John J. Miller, reason.com. August/September 1999.

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• If you start with a bang, you won't end with a whimper.

  T. S. Eliot

  Writing, Bangs, Ends

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• The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

  Jim Rohn

  Inspirational, Truth, Writing

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• The reason 99% of all stories written are not bought by editors is very simple. Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

  John Y. Campbell

  Home, Writing, Simple

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• Editors never buy manuscripts that are left on the closet shelf at home.

  John W. Campbell

  Home, Editors, Writing And Reading

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• Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Writing, Keys, Story Writers

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