Nonfiction Quotes - Page 4

• Nonfiction, qua label, is nothing more or less than a very flexible (easily breakable) frame that allows you to pull the thing away from narrative and toward contemplation, which is all I've ever wanted.

  David Shields

  Labels, Narrative, Contemplation

  David Shields (2010). “Reality Hunger”, p.124, Vintage

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• I remember reading an interview with a writer who said that in nonfiction if you have one lie it sort of messes it up. But in fiction the real details give you so much more credibility, because people do so much research just to write fiction. In fiction you're trying to recreate something lifelike.

  Edwidge Danticat

  Real, Lying, Reading

  "A Voice in Haiti’s Chorus". Interview with Elizabeth Gettelman, www.motherjones.com. 2010.

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• I coauthored my first nonfiction book by the time I was 25. I have been involved in nonfiction documentaries, newspapers, TV and internet since that time.

  Julian Assange

  Book, Firsts, Documentaries

  "Julian Assange answers your questions". Q&A, www.theguardian.com. December 3, 2010.

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• I often read nonfiction with a pencil in hand. I love the feel, the smell, the design, the weight of a book, but I also enjoy the convenience of my Kindle - for travel and for procuring a book in seconds.

  Drew Gilpin Faust

  Book, Hands, Smell

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• I would write light entertainment nonfiction pieces during the day, then come home and work on my fantasy fiction. It was very difficult to get out of the one mindset and into another one.

  Cassandra Clare

  Home, Writing, Light

  "Cassandra Clare Interview". WriteWords Interview, www.writewords.org.uk. July 31, 2007.

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• I did not set out to write another novel. One day I sat down with the thought of trying my hand at a piece of nonfiction, a personal memoir of youth, but over the next several weeks, without intending it, the work began evolving into what has become 'Tomcat in Love.

  Tim O'Brien

  Writing, Hands, Trying

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• I've been making 16mm urban landscape films about San Francisco for many years. I choose different nonfiction themes to investigate and am generally interested in surfacing lesser-known histories. I like to investigate and illuminate these histories, combining them with my own unconventional storytelling style, which is generally a stream-of-consciousness voiceover involving a steady stream of personal reflections on pining over unavailable women.

  Jenni Olson

  Reflection, Years, San Francisco

  "Sundance Women Directors: Meet Jenni Olson – ‘The Royal Road’". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. January 25, 2015.

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• After writing fiction for so long, I like the discovery element of nonfiction, in the sense that when you find the right information, it feels like gold.

  Edwidge Danticat

  Writing, Discovery, Long

  "A Voice in Haiti’s Chorus". Interview with Elizabeth Gettelman, www.motherjones.com. 2010.

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• The truth is that every writer, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, is trying to write something truly original and that's what I think I'm doing.

  Lisa Scottoline

  Writing, Thinking, Trying

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• Good writing is good writing no matter what genre you're writing in, and I believe that there are only a handful of fundamental craft tools that are essential for any genre-including nonfiction.

  Georgia Heard

  Believe, Writing, Essentials

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• The act of writing should not be accompanied by the sense of an audience, someone peering over your shoulder, but in nonfiction I think it’s almost imperative that you identify an audience so you can confirm or challenge or undermine whatever ideas or prejudices they might have about your subject.

  Pankaj Mishra

  Writing, Thinking, Ideas

  Interview with Sarah Fay, staging.believermag.com. March 2007.

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• Nonfiction narratives are really powerful and valid in themselves. But one thing that you don't get sometimes from the more clinical or academic books or nonfiction books is that you don't get to hear the person's voice; you don't get them as individuals. You get a few quotes and you hear them as sort of a case study: numbers, examples, anecdotes, maybe a paragraph here, and that's about it.

  Dave Eggers

  Powerful, Book, Voice

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• I am far less interested in serving as a change agent than in functioning as a prose artist, whether it's fiction or nonfiction.

  James Howard Kunstler

  Artist, Fiction, Agents

  Source: www.terrain.org

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• I've been a lifelong horror fan, but at the same time, I would say 90 percent of my reading is biographies and nonfiction history.

  Seth Grahame-Smith

  Reading, Biographies, Horror Fans

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• When you're teaching creative nonfiction, it helps to have written about your life in a very open way, because you can say, 'Look, how much are you willing to risk emotionally to write? How careful can you be with the other people you're writing about?

  Marya Hornbacher

  Teaching, Writing, Creative Nonfiction

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• When I'm working on a novel of my own, I try to read mostly nonfiction, although sometimes I break down and peek at something else.

  Carl Hiaasen

  Trying, Down And, Sometimes

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• In December 2011, I will be opening up my production house, Sharmeen Obaid Films, and aspire to change the way Pakistanis approach nonfiction storytelling. There are thousands of stories to be found here.

  Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy

  Opening Up, House, Stories

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• When I'm writing fiction I'm thinking, God, this is so hard - I have to make all this stuff up! I wish I were writing a nonfiction book where all the facts are laid out and I don't have to be so much at sea.

  Douglas Preston

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  "The Power of Two: Bonus Outtakes From WD Interview With Lincoln Child & Douglas Preston". Interview with Brian A. Klems, www.writersdigest.com. January 12, 2012.

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• I don't actually have a one wellspring of inspiration. Though I'm most often inspired while reading - both fiction and nonfiction.

  James Rollins

  Inspiration, Reading, Fiction And Nonfiction

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• I write nonfiction in this thriller-esque style. I have all the facts; I research it. I have thousands of pages of court documents... I try to get inside my stories.

  Ben Mezrich

  Writing, Style, Trying

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• In terms of a narrative nonfiction book, when you're describing scenes that you have multiple sources for, and that you have differing sources for, and you decide to choose a path that puts all that information together, well yeah, there's definitely going to be a little bit of the author in that. But there's nothing wrong with that.

  Ben Mezrich

  Book, Together, Path

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• Fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape.

  Jonathan Gottschall

  Intellectual, Fiction, Stories

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• I love making fiction films as well as nonfiction ones, and hope to keep challenging myself to make better and better work.

  Lucy Walker

  Challenges, Fiction, Challenging Myself

  "The Crash Reel Director Lucy Walker on Snowboarding and Simone de Beauvoir". Interview with Melissa Silverstein, www.indiewire.com. December 12, 2013.

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• One of my rigid goals is to keep each book under 300 pages because I think so much nonfiction is literally weighty that people don't get through these books ... If people don't finish your book, then they don't know what you're talking about.

  Thomas Cahill

  Book, Thinking, Talking

  "Thomas Cahill's mission: to restore the West's genealogy" by Jamie Allen, www.cnn.com. November 27, 1998.

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• Let me roughly divide books into those which compete with the movies and those with which the movies cannot compete. They are the books that can elevate or instruct. If they are fine works of fiction, they can deepen your appreciation of human life. If they are serious works of nonfiction, they can inform or enlighten you.

  Mortimer Adler

  Appreciation, Book, Serious

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