Nonfiction Quotes

• I still believe nonfiction is the most important literature to come out of the second half of the 20th century.

  Tom Wolfe

  Believe, Important, Half

  48 Copy quote

• It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer.

  E. O. Wilson

  Writing, Thinking, Technique

  "Ants and Answers: A Conversation with E. O. Wilson" by Deborah Treisman, www.newyorker.com. January 15, 2010.

  39 Copy quote

  Show source

• Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing.

  Joan Didion

  Writing, Sculpture, Research

  "Joan Didion, The Art of Nonfiction No. 1". Interview with Hilton Als, www.theparisreview.org. 2006.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can tell a more over-the-top incredible story if you use a nonfiction form.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Stories, Use, Incredibles

  12 Copy quote

• People respect nonfiction but they read novels.

  E. O. Wilson

  People, Novel

  "EO Wilson: Our Greatest Biologist Writes A Novel, ‘Anthill’". Interview with Steve Ross, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 5, 2010.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think the goal with any writing, but especially narrative nonfiction, is to put the blockade of putting your thoughts in this unnatural medium of print and then trying to reach through that and actually convey what's going on, what you think, and make people laugh and recognize themselves while doing it. Definitely the laughing thing.

  Sloane Crosley

  Writing, Thinking, People

  12 Copy quote

• I don't read for amusement, I read for enlightenment. I do a lot of reviewing, so I have a steady assignment of reading. I'm also a judge for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which gives awards to literature and nonfiction.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Reading, Awards

  12 Copy quote

• My platform has been to reach reluctant readers. And one of the best ways I found to motivate them is to connect them with reading that interests them, to expand the definition of reading to include humor, science fiction/fantasy, nonfiction, graphic novels, wordless books, audio books and comic books.

  Jon Scieszka

  Book, Reading, Fiction

  48 Copy quote

• In fiction, when you paint yourself into a corner, you can write a pair of suction cups onto the bottoms of your shoes and walk up the wall and out the skylight and see the sun breaking through the clouds. In nonfiction, you don't have that luxury.

  Tom Robbins

  Wall, Writing, Clouds

  12 Copy quote

• I come from a little island with the Caribbean Sea on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. I come from, really, nowhere, and for me, the fiction and the nonfiction, creative or otherwise, all come from the same place.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Ocean, Islands, Sea

  "Jamaica Kincaid talks about 'See Now Then'". Interview with Kevin Nance, www.chicagotribune.com. February 16, 2013.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am consumed, or I have been consumed, with these issues of motherhood and the way we act out societal expectations and roles. So both my nonfiction and my fiction have been pretty much exclusively about that.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Motherhood, Issues, Expectations

  "Ayelet Waldman on Acting Your Age". Interview with Tim J Luddy, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2009.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• In this time of the Internet and nonfiction, to be on an actual bookshelf in an actual bookstore is exciting in itself.

  Chris Abani

  Bookstores, Internet, Exciting

  12 Copy quote

• There is always a certain leap of faith that editors have made with their nonfiction writers. If the trust is broken, things can get very embarrassing for the writers and the publisher.

  A. Scott Berg

  Editors, Broken, Leap Of Faith

  12 Copy quote

• I find interesting characters or lessons that resonate with people and sometimes I write about them in the sports pages, sometimes I write them in a column, sometimes in a novel, sometimes a play or sometimes in nonfiction. But at the core I always say to myself, 'Is there a story here? Is this something people want to read?'

  Mitch Albom

  Sports, Writing, Character

  2 Copy quote

• I've written six novels and four pieces of nonfiction, so I don't really have a genre these days.

  Anne Lamott

  Pieces, Four, Six

  3 Copy quote

• In nonfiction, you have that limitation, that constraint, of telling the truth.

  Peter Matthiessen

  Fiction And Nonfiction, Telling The Truth, Constraints

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• I used to distinguish between my fiction and nonfiction in terms of superiority or inferiority.

  Peter Matthiessen

  Fiction, Inferiority, Used

  72 Copy quote

• There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Fiction, Narrative, Fiction And Nonfiction

  New York Times Book Review, January 27, 1988.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Writing fiction is for me a fraught business, an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel, and sometimes all the way through. The work process is totally different from writing nonfiction. You have to sit down every day and make it up.

  Joan Didion

  Writing, Different, Fiction

  FaceBook post by Joan Didion from Sep 23, 2011

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whenever you have two characters in a book, whether it's a novel or nonfiction, you run the risk that the reader is going to like one more than the other. They're going to read one chapter and say, 'I can't wait to get back to the other guy.

  Mitch Albom

  Running, Book, Character

  2 Copy quote

• Every time I write a nonfiction book I get sued.

  Joseph Wambaugh

  Book, Writing

  Interview with Ann Bruns, www.bookreporter.com. May 17, 2002.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem.

  Jonathan Coe

  Fiction And Nonfiction, Talent, Problem

  3 Copy quote

• I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again.

  Joseph Wambaugh

  Giving, Research, Fiction And Nonfiction

  Interview with Ann Bruns, www.bookreporter.com. May 17, 2002.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have written two nonfiction books, I'm embarrassed to say.

  Dirk Benedict

  Book, Two, Fiction And Nonfiction

  4 Copy quote

• Now that I'm taking some time off from school, I've been reading a lot to make sure I don't forget everything. It's mostly classics and nonfiction accounts from actors, directors and writers from the '40s and '50s

  Fred Savage

  Reading, School, Forget Everything

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source