Quotes About Fiction

Fiction is risky for writers also in that the process of making certain books, of shaping certain narratives, leaves scars and marks on your inner life.

There was a positive side to not trying at something: you could always pretend that your life would have been different if you had.

The producers broke one of their own rules: Star Trek has become pop culture, but there is never pop culture within Star Trek, because it punctures the reality.

At that moment Jack reached an insight, one he never forgot: a bee in a story could tickle worse than a real bee. He realized, too, that a story peach could be sweeter than a real peach, a story flower more fragrant than a real flower, a story song more melodious than a real song. What existed in a story could be more real than what existed in the world. And by reaching this insight, Jack understood the true power of his art.

Writers of Earth-invader science fiction, please remember to provide all your aliens with soft grasping hands or tentacles or some other fleshy fat appendages.)

It may be that the best we can hope for when it comes to utopias is that they be held at arm's length and regarded as aesthetic constructions, in which various proportions are neatly worked out, contradictions eliminated, and outside intrusions minimized. They are fictions, artifacts of culture. And we should be wary if they ever become much more.

Just as a novelist may sometimes wonder why he invents characters who do not exist and makes them do things which do not matter, so a philosopher may wonder why he invents cases that cannot occur in order to determine what must be the case.

Fiction is not only fiction; it also carries truth that appears in various imaginary contexts and protective forms.

Not every fiction is fake, as the concept of the flying carpet has been only fiction. However, today that concept is a reality as the airplanes. Fiction is an image; a writer puts that into the words while a scientist puts that into a reality. Every scientist first experiences its thoughts, or in other words, imaginations, someone proves that, and someone fails.

Not every fiction is fake, as the concept of the flying carpet has been only fiction. However, today that concept is a reality as the airplanes. Fiction is an image; a writer puts that into words while a scientist puts that into a reality. Every scientist first experiences its thoughts, or in other words, imagination; someone proves that, and someone fails.

The worth, height, and beauty of writing lie in its level and nature of fiction.

The worth, height, and beauty of writing, lie upon its level and nature of fiction.

It pained her deeply to realize Alysandir wasn't her romantic hero she had pegged him to be. In truth he was no more attainable than her dreams of Mr. Darcy. – Isobella Douglas

Within the sphere of English fiction Heathcliff stands alone. Therefore, if we do not understand him, then it is highly probable we were never intended to do so, so that we should try to realize and accept the fact that there may be just one or two things yet left in heaven and earth not dreamt of by our philosophy.

The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.

In fiction we say and recognize things about ourselves, which, for the sake of propriety, we ignore or don't talk about in reality.

the disgusting face of things alone was not enough for writing a novel: without imagination it would seem not a true face but a mask.

Volví a sacar novelas de la biblioteca circulante, las leía una tras otra. Pero a la larga no me hicieron bien. Proponían vidas intensas, diálogos profundos, un fantasma de la realidad más apasionante que mi vida real. Así, para sentir

Solo en las malas novelas la gente piensa siempre lo correcto, dice siempre lo correcto, todo efecto tiene su causa, hay simpáticos y antipáticos, buenos y malos, al final todo te consuela

Evidently what in the fiction of the story serves in all innocence to reach the heart of the reader becomes an abomination for one who feels the echo of the facts she has really lived.

With greater or less ability we fabricate fictions not so that the false will seem true but to tell the most unspeakable truth with absolute faithfulness through the fiction.

Disse che la faccia schifosa delle cose non bastava a scrivere un romanzo: senza fantasia non pareva una faccia vera, ma una maschera.

You wanted to write novels, I created a novel with real people, with real blood, in reality.

But I must have overdone it, and the relationship between truth and fiction must have gone awry: now every street, every building had become recognizable