Quotes About Fiction

I don't think there is a fictional character who resembles me because fictional characters are not real!

Galactica' resembles 'Bonanza' because it's all theater.

You read a script and its based on 'Reservoir Dogs' and 'Pulp Fiction', and it goes right in the bin.

I do this a lot with names. I'll start with a name, and then for some reason he won't talk much, or he's older than I pictured him just because of a name I give him. So then I finally get the right name, and I can't shut the guy up. This always happens. There's always a character who gives me trouble that way.

I've found that people get particularly frustrated and shut down when women in fiction are disgusting or disordered.

Sibling relationships figure in a lot of my books. You don't often see relationships between adult siblings explored in fiction.

I usually grow sick of my short-story characters and think, 'I never want to see you again.'

When I was a kid, I figured I would be a physicist when I grew up, and then I would write science fiction on the side. The physicist thing didn't pan out, but writing science fiction on the side did.

I think that, for physicians who want to become writers, they have the material, the smarts, they have the logic, they know the stories; it's just a matter of being able to connect with their emotional sides - that's the key to writing good fiction.

My personality has two sides: a very social side and a reclusive side. I love writing fiction, although I can't imagine ever being locked up in a room writing all the time.

I should probably be careful admitting this, but sometimes, when my characters are having a disagreement, it's a disagreement I'm having with myself. I can see both sides of the argument.

We live in interesting times. Information overload can make it difficult to sift fact from fiction.

I think where a writer falls on the realism/non-realism continuum has a lot to do with their sight, as in, 'This is how I see the world.' And it seems my sight is off-kilter and kind of strange, but I come by that naturally; I'm not consciously pushing toward a particular point on the continuum.

I wrote my first play at the age of 10, 55 years ago, and I've always found it a fantastic relief to imagine I know what things would be like from the point of view of other individuals and to send out signals from where I actually am not. Playwrights never need to write from the place where they are.

I've always believed in the power of rational thinking and behavior as the savior of the world, and science fiction as a powerful medium to encourage that, which explains my signature line, 'Let's save the world through science fiction.'

Most everything that happens to me in any significant sense finds its way into my fiction.

Poetry is not mainstream, but then neither is serious fiction, really. But I don't think there's a lot to worry about in this particular 'problem'. Why does art have to be mainstream to be significant?

Most science fiction, quite frankly, is silly nonsense.

God invented mankind because he loved silly stories.

I think in our time, you know, so much of the information we get is pre-polarized. Fiction has a way of reminding us that we actually are very similar in our emotions and our neurology and our desires and our fears, so I think it's a nice way to neutralize that polarization.

Friends sometimes ask, "Don't you get lonely sitting by yourself all day?" At first it seemed odd to hear myself answer No. Then I realized that I was not alone; I was in the book; I was with the characters. I was with my Self.

I know it's true because I made it up myself.

Just, that we read fiction because it suggests that life has a shape, and we feel . . . consoled, I think he said, by that notion. Consoled to think that life isn't just one damned thing after another. That it has sequence and consequence." She smiled at Edith. "I think it was more or less the idea that fictional narrative made life seem to matter, that it pushed away the

I now understand that writing fiction was a seed planted in my soul, though I would not be ready to grow that seed for a long time.