Fiction Quotes - Page 10

• Funny how the world always praises its opera-singers so much and pays 'em so well and then starves its shoemakers, and yet it needs good shoes so much more than it needs opera--or war or fiction.

  Sinclair Lewis

  War, Shoes, Needs

  Sinclair Lewis (1915). “The Trail of the Hawk: A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life”

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• Poetry, far more than fiction, reveals the soul of humanity.

  Amy Lowell

  Soul, Humanity

  Amy Lowell (1931). “Tendencies in Modern American Poetry”, p.11, Ardent Media

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• There is no such thing as a normal period of history. Normality is a fiction of economic textbooks.

  Joan Robinson

  Textbooks, Normal, Economic

  Joan Robinson (2014). “Contributions to Modern Economics”, p.3, Academic Press

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• Corporations are not legal "persons" with constitutional rights and freedoms of their own, but legal fictions that we created and must therefore control.

  Kalle Lasn

  Rights, Corporations, Persons

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• There’s always been a need for horror fiction, though - ghost stories have been a staple of every human society since the beginning of recorded literature - and while commercially the field may have its ups and downs, it will never go away. Hell, look at the Bible: gods, devils, ghosts, witches, giants, resurrections. That’s one big horror story. And it’s the most popular book on the planet.

  Bentley Little

  Book, Ghost Stories, Horror Stories

  "Bentley Little: The Elusive Dark Scribe Speaks". Interview with Vince A. Liaguno, www.darkscribemagazine.com. September 13, 2007.

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• Expectation is a statistical fiction, like having 2.5 children.

  William Poundstone

  Children, Expectations

  William Poundstone (2010). “Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System That Beat the Casinos and Wall Street”, p.50, Macmillan

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• As success converts treason into legitimacy, so belief converts fiction into fact, and "nothing is but what is not.

  Samuel Laman Blanchard

  Facts, Belief, Legitimacy

  "Sketches from Life" by Laman Blanchard. "That what Everybody Says must be True", 1846.

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• Although The Terminator is arguably the more visionary of the first two films, [Terminator 2] is the more visually and viscerally satisfying. It's an exhausting experience and, even 18 years after its release (as I write this review), few films have matched it within the science fiction genre for sheer white-knuckle exhilaration.

  James Berardinelli

  Writing, White, Years

  "Terminator 2: Judgment Day (United States, 1991)". Movie Review, www.reelviews.net.

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• The symmetry of form attainable in pure fiction can not so readily be achieved in a narration essentially having less to do with fable than with fact. Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its ragged edges.

  Herman Melville

  Fables, Facts, Form

  Herman Melville, Douglas Robillard (2000). “The Poems of Herman Melville”, p.32, Kent State University Press

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• I hate the whole übermensch, superman temptation that pervades science fiction. I believe no protagonist should be so competent, so awe-inspiring, that a committee of 20 really hard-working, intelligent people couldn't do the same thing.

  David Brin

  Hate, Believe, Hard Work

  "David Brin: Dialog With the Future". Locus Magazine Interview, www.locusmag.com. March 1997.

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• Fiction writers, at least in their braver moments, do desire the truth: to know it, speak it, serve it. But they go about it in a peculiar and devious way, which consists in inventing persons, places, and events which never did and never will exist or occur, and telling about these fictions in detail and at length and with a great deal of emotion, and then when they are done writing down this pack of lies, they say, There! That's the truth!

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Truth, Lying, Writing

  Ursula K. Le Guin (2000). “The Left Hand of Darkness”, p.8, Penguin

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• Life is stranger than fiction. It's nice to have stuff that people don't know about. And it helps when you read a bad review. You can go, "This guy doesn't have me figured out." There's more mystery to you than they understand.

  Dolph Lundgren

  Nice, People, Guy

  Source: www.menshealth.com

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• I never think about genre when I work. I've written fantasy, science fiction, supernatural fiction, and am now working on a suspense novel. Genres are mostly useful as a marketing tool, and to help booksellers known where to shelve a book.

  Elizabeth Hand

  Book, Thinking, Suspense Novels

  On "Mortal Love" at HarperCollins, 2004.

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• In a sense, all fiction is experimental. Every new book is an adventure into unknown territory. As Hemingway told us, you (the writer) have to go out beyond where you have gone before.

  Richard Laymon

  Book, Adventure, Gone

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• Physics has entered a remarkable era. Ideas that were once the realm of science fiction are now entering our theoretical — and maybe even experimental — grasp. Brand-new theoretical discoveries about extra dimensions have irreversibly changed how particle physicists, astrophysicists, and cosmologists now think about the world. The sheer number and pace of discoveries tells us that we've most likely only scratched the surface of the wondrous possibilities that lie in store. Ideas have taken on a life of their own.

  Lisa Randall

  Lying, Taken, Thinking

  "Warped Passages: Unraveling the Universe's Hidden Dimensions". Book by Lisa Randall, 2005.

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• When I'm up for an award, there are usually two or three other things on the ballot that I like better than my own fiction.

  Kelly Link

  Awards, Two, Three

  Interview with Maggie Slater, www.apex-magazine.com. July 2, 2013.

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• Everyone has a bizarre childhood and unusual life experiences, whether they know it or not. There's no such thing as a normal childhood. What's useful in writing weird fiction is learning how to understand and articulate those moments of personal, particular strangeness.

  Kelly Link

  Writing, Childhood, Normal

  Interview with Maggie Slater, www.apex-magazine.com. July 2, 2013.

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• Topiary has always seemed like a good occupation, comparable in some ways to writing short fiction.

  Kelly Link

  Writing, Occupation, Way

  "Kelly Link, Words by Flashlight". Interview with Lauren McLaughlin, www.sensesfive.com. June 7, 2006.

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• I suppose that literature as it is won't die, science fiction included. But games are becoming an extremely important part of the science fiction world, including games that are adapted from books (or vice versa: books that are adapted from games). It's wonderful to have the opportunity to play and see your favorite characters on the screen, but the opportunity to read a book does not become less attractive.

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Book, Character, Opportunity

  "Watching The Watches: An Interview With Sergei Lukyanenko". Interview with Nicholas Seeley, strangehorizons.com. November 28, 2011.

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• I often use detective elements in my books. I love detective novels. But I also think science fiction and detective stories are very close and friendly genres, which shows in the books by Isaac Asimov, John Brunner, and Glen Cook. However, whilst even a tiny drop of science fiction may harm a detective story, a little detective element benefits science fiction. Such a strange puzzle.

  Sergei Lukyanenko

  Book, Thinking, Friendly

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• Isherwood did not so much find himself in Berlin as reinvent himself; Isherwood became a fiction, a work of art.

  Ian Buruma

  Art, Berlin, Works Of Art

  1986 Of Christopher Isherwood. In the New Republic, 4 Nov.

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• The primary ambition of Nietzsche's critique of knowledge is ... to demonstrate that 'truths' are fictions masking moral commitments.

  John Carroll

  Ambition, Commitment, Moral

  John Carroll (2010). “Break-Out from the Crystal Palace: The Anarcho-Psychological Critique: Stirner, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky”, p.83, Taylor & Francis

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• [Vathek] has, in parts, been called, but to some judgments, never is, dull: it is certainly in parts, grotesque, extravagant and even nasty. But Beckford could plead sufficient "local colour" for it, and a contrast, again almost Shakespearean, between the flickering farce atrocities of the beginning and the sombre magnificence of the end. Beckford's claims, in fact, rest on the half-score or even half-dozen pages towards the end: but these pages are hard to parallel in the later literature of prose fiction.

  William Thomas Beckford

  Half, Literature, Dozen

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• Blade Runner is a rare science fiction movie so full of material that pages can be written about it without scratching the surface. A review like this can provide little more than an overview. A detailed exploration of the movie, its style, and its mysteries requires dedication that only someone immersed in Blade Runner lore can provide.

  James Berardinelli

  Dedication, Blade Runner, Style

  Review of "Blade Runner", www.reelviews.net. 1982.

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• Since 1977, there have been many science fiction movies, but none has managed to equal [A New Hope's] blend of adventure, likable characters, and epic storytelling.

  James Berardinelli

  Adventure, Character, Epic

  "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)". A movie review at www.reelviews.net,

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