Quotes About Fiction

Sometimes I fear to write, even in fictional form, about things that really happened to me, about things that I really did, or about the numerous unattractive, cruel, or embarrassing thoughts that I have at one time or another entertained. Just as often, I find myself writing about disturbing or socially questionable acts and states of mind that have no real basis in my life at all, but which, I am afraid, people will quite naturally attribute to me when they read what I have written.

I'm always thrilled," wrote Alan Cheuse, emphasizing the novelty and, perhaps, the faint air of slumming that attends the notion of McCarthy's move to the science-fiction neighborhood, "when a fine writer of first-class fiction takes up the genre of science fiction and matches its possibilities with his or her own powers.

Michael Chabon

New York Times bestsellers The Wrong Side of Goodbye and The Crossing. His books, which include the Harry Bosch series and Lincoln Lawyer series, have sold more than

This novel is fiction, except for the parts that aren't.

And entertainment has nothing to do with reality. Entertainment is antithetical to reality.

They want to see their expectation... Entertainment has nothing to do reality. Entertainment is antithetical to reality.

entertainment has nothing to do with reality. Entertainment is antithetical to reality.

There are no pirates in Port Royal

You said yourself, John, this park is entertainment," Wu said. "And entertainment has nothing to do with reality. Entertainment is antithetical to reality.

Some of us, alas, are destined to find our escapes in novels, not life.

As with a love affair, the battered heart needs time to recover from a good work of fiction.

Despite the rising popularity of the downloadable e-text, I still care about physical books, gravitate to handsome editions and pretty dust jackets, and enjoy seeing rows of hardcovers on my shelves. Many people simply read fiction for pleasure and nonfiction for information. I often do myself. But I also think of some books as my friends and I like to have them around. They brighten my life.

I still care about physical books, gravitate to handsome editions and pretty dust jackets, and enjoy seeing rows of hardcovers on my shelves. Many people simply read fiction for pleasure and nonfiction for information. I often do myself. But I also think of some books as my friends and I like to have them around. They brighten my life.

Es ist komisch. Es gibt einen Moment, wo man mit seinen Figuren nicht mehr machen kann, was man will, wo die eine Art Eigenleben kriegen und man eigentlich nur noch hinter ihnen hinterherschreiben muss. Und das ist ein gutes Zeichen, wenn dieser Punkt erreicht ist. Weil das heißt, dass die Figur wirklich ein Leben gekriegt hat.

Why, this was all about him! And it was the Neverending Story. He, Bastian, was a character in the book which until now he had thought he was reading. And heaven only knew who else might be reading it at the exact same time, also supposing himself to be just a reader.

You ask me what you will be there. But what are you here? What are you creatures of Fantastica? Dreams, poetic inventions, characters in a neverending story. Do you think you're real? Well yes, here in your world you are.

I wonder what's in a book while it's closed. Oh, I know it's full of letters printed on paper, but all the same, there's a whole story with people I don't know yet and all kinds of adventures and deeds and battles. And sometimes there are storms at sea, or it takes you to strange cities and countries. All those things are somehow shut up in a book.

Thus, although life is by and large unthrilling, when we do find ourselves in the sort of situation upon which thrillers dote we cannot really experience it, because our imaginations are occupied by the familiar tropes of popular fiction. And the result of this is a kind of dull bafflement, and the sense that whatever it is cannot really be happening. We actually think that phrase: this can't be happening to me.

You can't have made-up things in made-up stories. But in real life, you can.

You still search for Narnia, even though by then you're too old to believe in it and it doesn't want you there.

Someone once asked me what I thought horror fiction did. What its purpose was . . . I replied that when I wrote horror fiction, I tried to take the improbable, the unimaginable, and the impossible, and make it seem not only possible--but inevitable.

It remains a mystery to me why some of that [pulp] fiction should be judged inferior to the rafts and rafts of bad social [literary] fiction which continues to be treated by literary editors as if it were somehow superior, or at least worthier of our attention. The careerist literary imperialism of the Bloomsbury years did a lot to produce fiction's present unseemly polarities.

Memory is the foundation of identity. Through our sense of identity, we act. We determine our moral judgements. We rewrite our own memories, of course, all the time. We create fresh narratives to use in our survival. We agree on fresh histories enabling us to take action. It is part of what makes us such flawed creatures. Creatures of such narrative fiction creating cause and effect.