Fiction Quotes - Page 5

• Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.

  John Hersey

  Writing, Opportunity, Giving

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• A play is fiction and fiction is fact distilled into truth.

  Edward Albee

  Truth, Play, Facts

  The New York Times, September 18, 1966.

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• A public is a necessary fiction.

  Rowan Williams

  "This media tribe disfigures public life" by Rowan Williams, www.theguardian.com. June 16, 2005.

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• Truth is more peculiar than fiction. Life is really a startling place.

  Mira Nair

  Peculiar, Life Is, Truth Is

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• I can't read historical fiction because I find the real thing so much more interesting.

  Antonia Fraser

  Real, Interesting, Historical

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• The doctrine that all men are, in any sense, or have been, at any time, free and equal, is an utterly baseless fiction.

  Thomas Huxley

  Men, Humanity, Doctrine

  Thomas Henry Huxley, Henrietta A. Huxley (1908). “Aphorisms and reflections”

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• Fiction is life with the dull bits left out.

  Clive James

  Wisdom, Dull, Classic

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• Cut quarrels out of literature, and you will have very little history or drama or fiction or epic poetry left.

  Robert Staughton Lynd

  Drama, Cutting, Epic

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• Science fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts.

  Brian Aldiss

  Science, Ghost Stories, Scientist

  1961 Penguin Science Fiction, introduction.

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• Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.

  Ralph Ellison

  Real, Made, Difficult

  Ralph Ellison (2011). “The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison: Revised and Updated”, p.56, Modern Library

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• I read very widely, both non-fiction and fiction, so I don't think there's a single writer who influences me.

  Peter Benchley

  Thinking, Influence, Non Fiction

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• There is a real connection between Philosopy and fiction.

  Ken Follett

  Real, Connections, Real Connection

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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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• I think a child should be allowed to take his father's or mother's name at will on coming of age. Paternity is a legal fiction.

  James Joyce

  Birthday, Mother, Children

  James Joyce (1976). “Selected letters of James Joyce”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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• Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.

  Herman Wouk

  Book, Income, Taxation

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• Perfection irritates as well as it attracts, in fiction as in life.

  Louis Auchincloss

  Perfection, Excellence, Wells

  1965 Pioneers and Caretakers: A Study of Nine American Women Novelists.

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• Writing fiction is an endless and always defeated effort to capture some quality of life without killing it.

  Rose Wilder Lane

  Writing, Effort, Quality

  "Old Home Town". Book by Rose Wilder Lane. Chapter 1, 1935.

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• For me the purest and truest art in the world is science fiction.

  C. J. Cherryh

  Art, World, Truest

  C. J. Cherryh (2005). “The Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh”, Daw Books

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• I just think that fiction that isn't exploring what it means to be human today isn't art.

  David Foster Wallace

  Art, Mean, Thinking

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• But Roy Rockwood, it was science fiction for the sake of science fiction.

  Jack Vance

  Science, Sake, Science Fiction

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• One of the biggest roles of science fiction is to prepare people to accept the future without pain and to encourage a flexibility of the mind. Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Pain, Future, Science

  "The Making of Kubrick's 2001". Book by Jerome Agel, 1970.

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• I have to do more close research and fact checking for the science fiction. This is not however to say that writing good fantasy does not involve doing good research.

  Sarah Zettel

  Writing, Science, Research

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• We have escapist fiction, so why not escapist biography?

  John Kenneth Galbraith

  Biographies, Why Not, Economy

  1980 In the NewYork Times, 27 Jul.

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• In order to dream, you need to have a springboard which is the facts... It gives it that touch of reality, and I think that's quite important... truth with fiction.

  Janet Leigh

  Dream, Reality, Thinking

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• The fact is that one of the earliest lessons I learned in business was that balance sheets and income statements are fiction, cash flow is reality.

  Chris Chocola

  Reality, Cash Flow, Balance

  "Entrepreneurial Minds: Clarifying your expectations". Business Week, October 26, 2014.

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