Fiction Quotes - Page 16

• In reading, in literature and poetry, I found an artistic freedom that I didn't see at Woolworth's. I would read everything from Shakespeare to science fiction ... sometimes a book a day.

  Frederick Lenz

  Book, Reading, Literature

  4 Copy quote

• I enjoy the writings of all of these authors and they have been very inspirational for me. But I think that it is important as writers of metaphysical, New Age, occult fiction and nonfiction to not take ourselves too seriously.

  Frederick Lenz

  Writing, Thinking, Important

  5 Copy quote

• While fiction is often impossible, it should not be implausible.

  Aristotle

  Book, Impossible, Language

  7 Copy quote

• I often imagine that the longer he studies English literature the more the Japanese student must be astonished at the extraordinary predominance given to the passion of love both in fiction and in poetry.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Passion, Literature, Students

  Lafcadio Hearn (2012). “Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn”, p.23, tredition

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I was writing for children, I was writing genre fiction. It was like making a good chair. However beautiful it looked, it needed four legs of the same length, it had to be the right height and it had to be comfortable.

  Mark Haddon

  Children, Writing, Literature

  "B is for bestseller". www.theguardian.com. April 11, 2004.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I say then, that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, than what the imagination alone is ever able to attain. This variety of terms, which may seem so unphilosophical, is intended only to express that act of the mind, which renders realities, or what is taken for such, more present to us than fictions, causes them to weigh more in the thought, and gives them a superior influence on the passions and imagination.

  David Hume

  Taken, Passion, Reality

  David Hume (1758). “Essays and Treatises on several subjects, etc. New edition”, p.311

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Homo religiosus invents religious symbols, which he venerates and worships to save him from facing the finality of his death and dissolution. He devises paradise fictions to provide succor and support... In acts of supreme self-deception, at various times and in various places he has been willing to profess belief in the most incredible myths because of what they have promised him.

  Paul Kurtz

  Religious, Self, Support

  12 Copy quote

• Going back to the noir fiction of the 30s, 40s and 50s. It's very contemporary.

  Jeff Goldblum

  Noir, Contemporary

  Source: www.movieweb.com

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Im a massive science fiction and fantasy geek.

  Robert Kazinsky

  Geek, Fantasy, Massive

  4 Copy quote

• Most crime fiction plots are not ambitious enough for me. I want something really labyrinthine with clues and puzzles that will reward careful attention.

  Sophie Hannah

  Want Something, Ambitious, Rewards

  5 Copy quote

• In journalism, a fact is just a fact. But in fiction, you have to build your case. It has to be made, step by step.

  Edward P. Jones

  Facts, Steps, Journalism

  6 Copy quote

• Fiction intended to please, should resemble truth as much as possible.

  Horace

  Should, Please

  6 Copy quote

• Fact is stranger than fiction.

  Thomas Chandler Haliburton

  Humanity, Facts, Stranger

  9 Copy quote

• Man is a poetical animal, and delights in fiction.

  William Hazlitt

  Animal, Men, Delight

  William Hazlitt (1854). “The Miscellaneous Works”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have always felt cookbooks were fiction and the most beautiful words in the English language were 'room service.

  Erma Bombeck

  Beautiful, Cooking, Room Service

  Erma Bombeck (2011). “I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression”, p.97, Fawcett

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let it be fact, one feels, or let it be fiction; the imagination will not serve under two masters simultaneously.

  Virginia Woolf

  Two, Imagination, Facts

  Virginia Woolf (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Virginia Woolf (Illustrated)”, p.3718, Delphi Classics

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• A poet's mission is to make others confound fiction and reality in order to render them, for an hour, mysteriously happy.

  Isak Dinesen

  Reality, Order, Poet

  20 Copy quote

• The work reveals the creator - and as our universe in its vastness, its orderliness, its exquisite detail, tells us something of the One who made it, so a work of fiction, for better or worse, will reveal the writer.

  Katherine Paterson

  Details, Vastness, Orderliness

  Katherine Paterson (2001). “The Invisible Child: On Reading and Writing Books for Children”, Dutton Juvenile

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• A friend of mine who writes history books said to me that he thought that the two creatures most to be pitied were the spider and the novelist - their lives hanging by a thread spun out of their own guts. But in some ways I think writers of fiction are the creatures most to be envied, because who else besides the spider is allowed to take that fragile thread and weave it into a pattern? What a gift of grace to be able to take the chaos from within and from it to create some semblance of order.

  Katherine Paterson

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  6 Copy quote

• Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting; there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction.

  John Dryden

  Real, Essence, Stories

  John Dryden, John Mitford (1847). “The works of John Dryden in verse and prose”, p.329

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The parable of the prodigal son, the most beautiful fiction that ever was invented; our Saviour's speech to His disciples, with which He closed His earthly ministrations, full of the sublimest dignity and tenderest affection, surpass everything that I ever read; and like the spirit by which they were dictated, fly directly to the heart.

  William Cowper

  Bible, Beautiful, Heart

  William Cowper (1862). “Letters of William Cowper; being a selection from his correspondence: with a sketch of his life, and biographical notices of his correspondents. [With a portrait.]”, p.54

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Literature takes its revenge on reality by making it the slave of fiction.

  Simone de Beauvoir

  Revenge, Reality, Literature

  Simone de Beauvoir (2016). “Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter”, p.34, HarperCollins

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Novels are to love as fairy tales to dreams.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Dream, Fairy Tale, Tales

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1858). “The complete works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: With an introductory essay upon his philosophical and theological opinions”, p.269

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In merest prudence men should teach . . .
  That science ranks as monstrous things
  Two pairs of upper limbs; so wings--
  E'en Angel's wings!--are fictions.

  Henry Austin Dobson

  Angel, Men, Wings

  4 Copy quote