Quotes About Fiction

Fiction cannot move so much, but that the attention may be easily transferred; and though it must be allowed that pleasing melancholy be sometimes interrupted by unwelcome levity, yet let it be considered likewise, that melancholy is often not pleasing, and that the disturbance of one man may be the relief of another; that different auditors have different habitudes; and that, upon the whole, all pleasure consists in variety.

The chief advantage which these fictions have over real life is, that their authors are at liberty, though not to invent, yet to select objects, and to cull from the mass of mankind, those individuals upon which the attention ought most to be employed; as a diamond, though it cannot be made, may be polished by art, and placed in such a situation, as to display that luster which before was buried among common stones.

To indulge the power of fiction, and send imagination out upon the wing, is often the sport of those [...] He who has nothing external that can divert him, must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not; for who is pleased with what he is?

that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith

Sandra Brown

Besides, I told him, as Hemingway once wrote about good stories, "They are truer than if they had really happened.

There's a moment in every book when the story and characters are finally there; they come to life, they're in control. They do things they're not supposed to do and become people they weren't meant to be. When I reach that place, it's magic. It's a kind of rapture.

my intention that people will feel like throttling her

Legolas is way cuter than Aragorn, and you know it.

Macon: "It's true. And if that doesn't work, use the Jedi Mind Trick. But only if you really have to." Halley: "The what?" Macon: "The Jedi Mind Trick." He looked at me. "Didn't you ever see Star Wars?

All I want is someone decent." She sniffled again, her eyes filling with tears. "You know? Kind. Good. Like in all those love stories I'm such an expert on. It can't just be fiction. It can't. Those guys are out there, I know it. I just can't find them." Those guys were out there. In fact, one was watching us right now, somewhere nearby. Keeping his distance, knowing she needed me to herself right then, but still, just outside the door.

We like stories that are false and seem true (realist novels), that are true and seem false (true crime), that are false and seem false (dragons and superheroes), or that are true and seem true, but it's harder to agree on what that is.

Sarah Mlynowski

I think we — well, I — messed up the story.

Sarah Mlynowski

There is a jarring disconnect between what I want my real-life intelligence officers to be doing versus what I want my fake TV intelligence officers to be doing.

A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life.

One of the paradoxes of writing is that when you write non-fiction everyone tries to prove that it's wrong, and when you publish fiction, everyone tries to see the truth in it.

I think about stories and their logic and wonder if there can be any such thing as simply there is a book.

Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis.

Men live in a fantasy world. I know this because I am one, and I actually receive my mail there

Real life doesn't have many happy endings. Why shouldn't books make up the difference?

Lace: Are you saying that your fat-ass cat has turned me into a vampire? Cal: Um, maybe?

For me to read a book is still And always will be quite a thrill. For me to read a book is like A boy when he rides his new two wheel bike. And when a bird comes north in spring It's natural for her to sing. I like to read books of poems and history Books of fiction and of mystery. And what is more, I'll read until I'm grown And then I'll write books of my own.