Non Fiction Quotes

• It's true that I don't rearrange that much in the fiction, but I feel if you change even one name or the order of one event then you have to call it fiction or you get all the credits of non-fiction without paying the price.

  Nicholson Baker

  Order, Names, Events

  "A life in writing". Interview with Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. September 18, 2009.

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• The most deeply personal of my works are the non-fiction works, the autobiographical works, because there, I'm talking about myself very directly.

  Paul Auster

  Talking, Fiction

  Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. November 5, 2009.

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• The subject for a lot of non-fiction is very emotional, but if you read it, it's the most boring, dry stuff. I wanted 'Torn Apart' to be extremely accessible and readable.

  James Patterson

  Emotional, Fiction, Torn Apart

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• A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end.

  Chaim Potok

  Writing, Fiction, Shapes

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• I'd probably be a super wealthy guy if I had sat around writing songs and getting them placed like everyone else I know. But I write songs about people or after I meet them and they're somewhat biographical - they're fiction but also non-fiction.

  Nile Rodgers

  Song, Writing, People

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• Expand the definition of 'reading' to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It's the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won't read shark books forever.

  Jon Scieszka

  Book, Reading, Adventure

  "National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Must Go!" by Jon Scieszka, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 18, 2010.

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• The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.

  Richard Stallman

  Practice, Ideas, Fiction

  Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.31, Lulu.com

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• I do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school.

  Daniel Tammet

  Teenager, School, Thinking

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• Amy Rapp, my producing partner, and I are drawn to character-driven material. We're developing and producing movies and TV, fiction and non-fiction, studio and independent, broadcast and cable, theatre, and web so our slate is really diverse.

  Meredith Vieira

  Character, Independent, Theatre

  "Interview with Meredith Vieira – Executive Producer of The Woman Who Wasn’t There". Interview with Melissa Silverstein, www.indiewire.com. January 8, 2013.

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• I have two pairs of reading glasses. One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction. I've read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it's the same.

  Steven Wright

  Reading, Glasses, Two

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• I'm a novelist, I'm not an activist. I'm not a non-fiction writer, I'm not a journalist. I'm not a foodie, I'm not even really an animal person, or an environmentalist. I did the best I could with this, but it's not who I am.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Animal, Who I Am, Novelists

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. November 17, 2009.

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• I write my first draft by hand, at least for fiction. For non-fiction, I write happily on a computer, but for fiction I write by hand, because I'm trying to achieve a kind of thoughtless state, or an unconscious instinctive state. I'm not reading what I write when I wrote. It's an unconscious outpouring that's a mess, and it's many, many steps away from anything anyone would want to read. Creating that way seems to generate the most interesting material for me to work with, though.

  Jennifer Egan

  Reading, Writing, Hands

  Interview with Marah Eakin, www.avclub.com. May 12, 2011.

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• I teach a non-fiction writing class at New York University, and one of my great pleasures is deciding on the syllabus.

  Susan Orlean

  New York, Writing, Class

  "An Education" by Susan Orlean, www.newyorker.com. March 15, 2011.

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• I tend to read non-fiction.

  Gary Oldman

  Fiction

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• My house is filled with books, most of which I have read, some of which I intend to eventually get to. I'm always reading at least one work of fiction and one work of non-fiction simultaneously. Whatever mood I'm in, there's always a book nearby to suit it.

  Rachel Nichols

  Book, Reading, House

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• In "The Myth of Sisyphus", his most important non-fiction work, Albert Camus suggested that if we believed what most people claim to be the purpose of life, we would feel compelled to commit suicide. If, however, we accept that life has no purpose we would be inclined to soldier on in a cussed, stoical manner like Sisyphus, endlessly pushing his rock up a hill only to see it roll down again.

  Philip French

  Life, Death, Suicide

  "Feathered frenzy" by Philip French, www.theguardian.com. December 10, 2005.

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• For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

  Iris Chang

  Writing, People, Liberty

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• In high school, I was very active in extracurricular activities such as art, theatre, and choir. I also wrote for the school newspaper, but not regularly, because I never liked writing non-fiction very much.

  Meg Cabot

  Art, School, Writing

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• The most difficult part of writing a book is not devising a plot which will captivate the reader. It's not developing characters the reader will have strong feelings for or against. It is not finding a setting which will take the reader to a place he or she as never been. It is not the research, whether in fiction or non-fiction. The most difficult task facing a writer is to find the voice in which to tell the story.

  Randy Pausch

  Strong, Book, Writing

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• I don't think people are averse to thinking about things in a deep way, but we have limited time and opportunity to think about things in a deep way. I think that's why there is an appetite for non-fiction - it gives people the opportunity to reexamine ordinary experience and be smarter about it.

  Malcolm Gladwell

  Opportunity, Thinking, People

  Interview with Donna Bowman, www.avclub.com. November 17, 2008.

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• I do, however, feel reasonably strongly the sense that the job of a piece of argumentative scholarly non-fiction is not the same as the job of a piece of fiction.

  China Mieville

  Jobs, Fiction, Pieces

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• I have long admired the visceral storytelling and moral complexity of John Vaillant’s brilliant non-fiction about humankind’s tragically ambivalent relationship with the natural world. Now he brings his abundant literary gifts to a debut novel set in a very real borderland in which human beings are themselves treated like animals. The Jaguar’s Children is a beautifully rendered lament for an imperiled culture and the brave lives that would preserve it. You should read it.

  John Burnham Schwartz

  Children, Real, Animal

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• In, 1950, at the age, 19 I dropped out of St. George William College in Montreal, as it then was, and sailed for England on the Franconia. Foolishly, no arrogantly, believing I could put Canada and its picayune problems behind me, never dreaming it would become the raw material of most of my fiction and non-fiction. Or that I would care so deeply about its surviving intact.

  Mordecai Richler

  Dream, Believe, College

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• Inspiration comes from so many sources. Music, other fiction, the non-fiction I read, TV shows, films, news reports, people I know, stories I hear, misheard words or lyrics, dreams

  Trudi Canavan

  Dream, Inspiration, Tv Shows

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• The best way to tell people about climate change is through non-fiction. There's a vast literature of outstanding writing on the subject.

  Ian Mcewan

  Writing, People, Climate

  "Ian McEwan: 'It's good to get your hands dirty a bit'". Interview with Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. March 5, 2010.

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