Quotes About Fiction

A poem, novel, or play acquires all of humanity's disorders, including the fear of mortality

Oscar Wilde's "beautiful untrue things" that save the imagination from falling into "careless habits of accuracy.

My introduction, implicitly echoing Oscar Wilde's remark that all bad poetry is sincere, grants the benign social decency of [Stephen] King's fictions.

No, sir!" cried Maxson, clearly incensed at the suggestion that he might engage in an activity as effete as reading fiction. "I want you to understand here and now that I do not read novels, no kind of novels!

Nothin's real scary except in books.

in favor of southern womanhood as much as anybody, but not for preserving polite fiction at the expense of human life.

Asked him and he said he wasn't. Besides, nothin's real scary except on books.

Besides, nothin's real scary except in books.

The novel must tell a story.

Oh dear me, yes. The novel must tell a story.

Ever see a plant with teeth—that bite? I don't think you want to. You'd have to be on Pyrrus and that means you would be dead within seconds of leaving the ship.

According to Chekhov, Tamaru said, rising from his chair, once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired. Meaning what? Meaning, don't bring unnecessary props into a story. If a pistol appears, it has to be fired at some point. Chekhov liked to write stories that did away with all useless ornamentation.

The whole terrible fight occured in the area of imagination. That is the precise location of our battlefield. It is there, that we experience our victories and defeats.

Memory is like fiction; or else it's fiction that's like memory.

I think most people live in fiction...That's how you keep your fragile body intact.

I'm alone inside the world of the story, my favorite feeling in the world.

Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won't keep reading your work.

Slowly like a movie fade out, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favorite feeling in the world.

When you introduce things that most readers have never seen before into a piece of fiction, you have to describe them with as much precision and in as much detail as possible. What you can eliminate from fiction is the description of things that most readers have seen.

All my books are weird love stories. I love weird love stories.

Exactly. When is comes to anything halfway important, you just don't get it. It's amazing to me that you can put a piece of fiction together' 'Yeah, well, that's a whole different thing.' (from Honey Pie)

Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness, a story. - Tolstoy

I think most people live in a fiction. I'm no exception. Think of it in terms of a car's transmission. It's like a transmission that stands between you and the harsh realities of life. You take the raw power from outside and use gears to adjust it so everything's all nicely in sync. That's how you keep your fragile body intact. Does this make any sense?

Your readers have seen a sky with one moon in it any number of times, right? But I doubt they've seen a sky with two moons in it side by side. When yoy introduce things that most readers have never seen before into a piece of fiction, you have to describe them with as much precision and in as much detail as possible. What you can eliminate from fiction is the description of what most readers have seen.