Quotes About Fiction

Novelists are evil psychopomps, basically. We treat a few characters as real, but the rest of them are cannon fodder.

Hi guys the book Im reading right this moment is called Uglies

I've always wanted to meet Tally Youngblood in the flesh.

life is problematic, so novels must be too.

She wondered if if there was anyone out there, really, or if David was just some story the Uglies made up to scare each other.

I wanted to have a make-believe world because I couldn't bear to live in the real one.

4: Stories let us lie to ourselves. And those lies satisfy our desires.

Sheila Finch was born and raised in London, England. She did graduate work in medieval literature and linguistics at Indiana University. Dragged to California in 1962 by her (then) husband, she fell in love with the state and has stayed there ever since. She taught fiction writing and the literature of science fiction for thirty years at El Camino College, in Torrance, California. She lives in Long Beach with a cat and a retired racing greyhound.

most recent novel is Blackjack, a near-future thriller, written as Lee Singer. She teaches writing online and does manuscript consulting. She has served as a judge in a number of fiction writing contests, including the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction writing competition. She lives in Petaluma

If it's fiction, then it better be true.

You're always making up stuff from the past," she said. "And the stuff you imagine is always better than the stuff that actually happened.

I don't recall the moment when I officially became a storyteller—a talented liar—but here I must quote Simon Ortiz, the Acoma Pueblo writer, who said, "Listen. If it's fiction, then it better be true.

But epics are rarely honest, and honesty should never be epic.

Ewwww-eee-wwww. Hey Ash, you vant to suck my blud? (Fang) No, thanks. The last thing I want is to catch parvo from you, or some other freaky dog disease that makes me lift my leg around hydrants. (Acheron)

Ryssa? How do you know her name was Ryssa? (Tory) Uh…I don't. I just gave her a name. It seemed more polite than calling her 'hey, you, ancient chick.' (Acheron)

It's a challenge to express real life in dramatic terms. In an entirely "made-up" story, you are sometimes overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities.

I always knew I wanted to write really imaginative fiction - fiction that was very different from my real life.

There is a set of balances and rhythms to a novel that we can't experience in real life. So I think there is a sense in which fiction can rescue history from confusion.

Character, to me, is the life's blood of fiction

It's fun to tease people about where fiction and life intersect.

I'm infinitely more involved in the reality of the characters and their situation than I am in everyday life.

... the main concern of the fiction writer is with mystery as it is incarnated in human life.

Lilly says I have an overactive imagination and a pathological need to invent drama in my life.

Reality television is a scripted hyper-life that employs writers, but won't allow them to call themselves writers or join the union.