Quotes About Fiction

When I grew up, there were locked cabinets in public libraries. You needed parental permission if you were under eighteen. I was let down by the overblown reputations of some hardcore fictional works.

In the best works of fiction, there's no mustache-twirling villain. I try to write shows where even the bad guy's got his reasons.

When I'm identified as a fiction writer at parties, the question comes pretty quickly. 'Did you go to school for it?' someone asks. 'Yes,' I say. 'Where?' they ask, because I don't usually offer it. 'I went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop,' I say.

I started off doing fiction in 1993. It didn't occur to me to do nonfiction because it wasn't a thing yet. So I was bumbling around, writing short stories, and then I took a nonfiction workshop, and I realized that this was what I was supposed to do.

I'm an ecumenical reader, grew up with all sorts of fiction, teach writing, went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop, so my tastes and interests are broad.

I have always enjoyed literature classes, and I took a fiction workshop for writing and analyzing at Curtis... I don't know if would do it professionally, but it's nice to have the balance with the music.

I teach fiction in my workshops, and some of the readings could be classified as horror. For example, 'House Taken Over,' a short story by Julio Cortazar, is a work I regularly teach.

Cinema is a world of imagination.

The world domination plan goal is that I would love Veronica Mars to become a brand like Sherlock Holmes is a brand, like Nancy Drew, in a way, is a brand. When people start listing who are the great fictional detectives, I want Veronica Mars to make that list. That would be the dream scenario.

If you think the shifting tectonics of world history might make for a juicy crime fiction backdrop, the last decade or so has proved you right.

You've got a guy in a cape and tights running around fighting crime 24-7; this is not normal. But it worked because the kids loved it and the adults laughed with it.

I could make up characters till the cows came home. Plot's what hard. Very hard.

I used to watch 'EastEnders' till the plots got ridiculous.

The architecture for 'Paladin' - given that it's at least three books, with the possibility of more - turned out to be bigger than anything I've ever created, with multiple levels of reality, interlocking mysteries and a terabyte of time frame.

At that time, people wanted to be frightened. The Thing had come out, The Day the Earth Stood Still had come out, and these were all frightening movies.

I tend to mostly take the day off from working on Sundays, but I do spend some time reading. Mostly what I'm picking up is what's in stores. I really do love to read fiction from the last year or two.

I think the idea of time travel is very seductive.

I'm always game for movies based on time travel. Hopefully, someday, I'll be a part of a time travel series of films.

The space genre is timeless.

'The Dovekeepers' is a compelling, beautifully written novel that combines history and fiction into a timeless story of survival and heroism.

I think it was in sixth grade, though, when I picked up my first Stephen King book, which was 'It,' that knocked me over and terrified me for years. Then I never went back. I had to own every Stephen King book and read them at least three times. They would terrify me completely, but I couldn't stop. That became my preferred source of fiction.

At the very end of a book I can manage to work for longer stretches, but mostly, making stuff up for three hours, that's enough. I can't do any more. At the end of the day I might tinker with my morning's work and maybe write some again. But I think three hours is fine.

Fiction writing, and the reading of it, and book buying, have always been the activities of a tiny minority of people, even in the most-literate societies.

I think we have become oversaturated with tired fictional narratives.