Non Fiction Quotes - Page 2

• [I like to read] spiritual books, non-fiction, fiction, I have my moods.

  MC Lyte

  Spiritual, Book, Fiction

  Source: uproxx.com

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• I like writing non-fiction - and when you pick a [non-fiction] subject, it saves you the hassle of coming up with a plot.

  Richard Hell

  Writing, Plot, Fiction

  Source: pitchfork.com

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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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• There is, in my mind, no higher compliment to pay a non-fiction book than to say it reads like a novel.

  Jon Weisman

  Book, Mind, Fiction

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Autobiographical writings, essays, interviews, various other things... All the non-fiction prose I wanted to keep, that was the idea behind this collected volume, which came out about few years ago. I didn't think of Winter Journal, for example, as an autobiography, or a memoir. What it is is a literary work, composed of autobiographical fragments, but trying to attain, I hope, the effect of music.

  Paul Auster

  Writing, Winter, Thinking

  Interview with Nathalie Cochoy, Sophie Vallas, transatlantica.revues.org. March 2014.

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• With non-fiction writing I feel like I'm confined and driven by what actually happened. That makes the "plot". So it's a process of getting all of my notes typed up, then scanning through the notes, trying to extract or find certain vignettes that seem like they might write well - that might have a potential for good energy, shape, etc. And then at some point I start stringing these together, keeping an eye on the word count.

  George Saunders

  Eye, Writing, Trying

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• To my mind, the prose in a non-fiction work that's going to endure has to be of the same quality as the prose in a work of fiction that endures.

  Robert Caro

  Mind, Quality, Fiction

  "The Round Table: Fiction, Biography And The Use Of Power". Interview with Kurt Vonnegut, www.robertcaro.com. 1999.

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• Any documentary; any capturing of a non-fiction event, is a hyper-realistic condensation of reality that hopefully reveals an emotional truth. It's never the actual literal truth of an event.

  Joe Berlinger

  Reality, Emotional, Events

  Source: povmagazine.com

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• The effect of reading literary non-fiction that matters most to me is when the coin drops, and this happens in the company of the great, mercuric, encyclopedic minds: Empson, Kenneth Burke, Northrop Frye.

  Paul Fry

  Reading, Mind, Fiction

  "Originality matters". Interview with Richard Marshall, www.3ammagazine.com. September 10, 2012.

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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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• I honestly believe that everything I know about the writing of non-fiction (or writing) could be engraved on the head of a pin with a garden hoe.

  M. F. K. Fisher

  Believe, Writing, Garden

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• I spend most of my time reading non-fiction of all sorts. Then poetry. Then fiction to blurb. Then fiction I want to read.

  Jim Shepard

  Reading, Fiction, Want

  Source: therumpus.net

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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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• I tend to read non-fiction.

  Gary Oldman

  Fiction

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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'm always looking for context in which people tell stories. In "Fight Club" it's these support groups for dying people, and then in "Choke" it's 12-step recovery groups. In one novel it's artists' colonies, in another novel it's a diary form that submariners' wives typically keep so that when their husband comes back from serving on a submarine they have an accounting of their spouse's time. So I'm always looking for, number one, a non-fiction context - because you can tell a more outrageous story if you use a non-fiction form.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Husband, Recovery, Fighting

  "Chuck Palahnuik On 'Choke'". Interview with Cole Smithey, www.colesmithey.com. September 24, 2008.

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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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• 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 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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• 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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