Fiction Quotes - Page 36

• I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can’t be like any other author’s really.

  Paul Kane

  Believe, Writing, Personality

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• There’s only one subject for fiction or poetry or even a joke: how it is. In all the arts, the payoff is always the same: recognition. If it works, you say that’s real, that’s truth, that’s life, that’s the way things are. ‘There it is.’

  Robert Stone

  Art, Real, Way

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• I was writing fiction steadily, but I found that the stark determinisms of code were a welcome relief from the ambiguities of literary narrative.

  Vikram Chandra

  Writing, Relief, Narrative

  Vikram Chandra (2013). “Geek Sublime: Writing Fiction, Coding Software”, p.22, Faber & Faber

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• When we risk no contradiction, It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction.

  John Gay

  Risk, Tongue, Contradiction

  John Gay, Thomas Park (1808). “The Poetical Works of John Gay: In Three Volumes. Collated with the Best Editions:”, p.21

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• In America, the stories we tell ourselves and we tell each other in fiction have to do with individualism. Every person here is the center of his or her own story. And our job as people and as characters is to find our own motivations and desires, to overcome conflicts and obstacles toward defining ourselves so that we grow and change.

  Adam Johnson

  Jobs, Motivation, Character

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• Science Fiction: Any scientific acclaim that omits God

  Johnny Hart

  Science Fiction, Acclaim

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• The subject of a novel is not the plot. Who remembers what happened to Lucien de Rebempre in the end?

  Graham Greene

  Plot, Remember, Ends

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• I have always known that writing fiction had little effect on the world; that if it did, young men would not have gone to war after The Iliad.

  Andre Dubus

  War, Writing, Men

  Andre Dubus (2010). “Broken Vessels: Essays”, p.67, Open Road Media

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• I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.

  Andre Dubus

  College, Men, Wings

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• Fiction, maybe art in general, is a tentative, uncertain enterprise; it's not science, it's an exploration, but you never find much in the way of answers.

  Tim O'Brien

  Art, Way, Answers

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• When I was younger I wanted to be a big movie star who'd get to be funny on talk shows and then I wanted to retire and write science fiction.

  Scott Thompson

  Stars, Writing, Bigs

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• If you want to be a fiction writer, you need to start reading like a fiction writer. To do so, you need to learn about craft so that the next time you pick up a contemporary short story, you're reading it not as an abstraction floating in formaldehyde, existing simply for the theorist's dull scalpel to saw on, but as a concrete thing constructed out of words and shaped by syntax, brought to life by a writer who made several thousand choices, some large, some small, before letting that imperfect beauty, the story, walk on its own two feet.

  John McNally

  Reading, Writing, Two

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• I read nonfiction almost exclusively - both for research and also for pleasure. When I read fiction, it's almost always in the thriller genre, and it needs to rivet me in the opening few chapters.

  Dan Brown

  Needs, Research, Pleasure

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• But there's the paradox of fiction - why do you cry when a fake character dies? It's the basis of art. You engage with people who don't exist and care about them as you would your friends and relatives.

  Michael Gruber

  Art, Character, People

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• I'm 40 years old, and I still love watching Bugs Bunny slap the bull on the nose. I still watch those cartoons, and yet I also enjoy reading books about science, or the current fiction.

  Jeff Smith

  Book, Reading, Years

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• As strange as this may sound, I very seldom read fiction. Because my novels require so much research, almost everything I read is non - fiction - histories, biographies, translations of ancient texts.

  Dan Brown

  Sound, Research, May

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• I wasn't a big science-fiction fan growing up. But I loved Jules Verne and Sherlock Holmes. Both came into play on 'The X-Files.'

  Chris Carter

  Growing Up, Play, Fans

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• And for the authentical truth of either person or actions, who (worth the respecting) will expect it in a poem, whose subject is not truth, but things like truth? Poor envious souls they are that cavil at truth's want in these natural fictions; material instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to virtue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soul, limbs, and limits of an authentical tragedy.

  George Chapman

  Soul, Tragedy, Want

  George Chapman (1874). “The Works of George Chapman: Plays”, p.178

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• A favorite science fiction writer of mine is William Faulkner! It was an idea that came to me once, years ago, and I've never quite been able to shake it. This is facetious, on one level at least. There are telepaths in As I Lay Dying. But I think the most compelling thing for me is there are moments with him where I just feel these are not humans talking to each other. These are some hyper-intelligent, yet-to-be-born organisms. The way they look at the past without having any loss of knowledge – everything that ever happened is still here.

  Robert Reed

  Loss, Thinking, Intelligent

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• Science fiction is really a rather tiny business compared with its giant cousin, which is fantasy.

  Robert Reed

  Cousin, Giants, Tiny

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• I'm the only member of SFWA in Nebraska, but I don't pine away for the companionship of other science fiction writers. I [go] to very few conventions. I'm quite willing to be that eccentric who has a very odd job, quite happy to be the only science fiction writer in town.

  Robert Reed

  Jobs, Nebraska, Eccentric

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• I love films. I love fiction films, too. I do. I love making them, but it has to be the right one. Hopefully, I'll never become a director for hire. It's horrible to make a film that you're not really interested in.

  Oliver Stone

  Directors, Film, Love Making

  Source: collider.com

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• I've spoken out my whole life against the idea of simply dismissing whole areas of fiction by saying it's "genre" and therefore can't be seen as literature.

  Stephen King

  Ideas, Literature, Genre

  Interview with Andy Greene, www.rollingstone.com. October 31, 2014.

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• The movies have never been a big deal to me. The movies are the movies. They just make them. If they're good, that's terrific. If they're not, they're not. But I see them as a lesser medium than fiction, than literature, and a more ephemeral medium.

  Stephen King

  Literature, Ephemeral, Bigs

  Interview with Andy Greene, www.rollingstone.com. October 31, 2014.

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• Pulp Fiction won the Palme d'Or and people said: "Wait a minute, he's actually smart and he knows what he's doing!" I feel that with Hostel, any time you make a film like that it's going to illicit a strong reaction and you can't worry about that.

  Eli Roth

  Strong, Smart, People

  Source: www.indielondon.co.uk

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