Quotes About Fiction

I've always been a fan of books that create an interesting blend of fact and fiction - whether it's Norman Mailer, or 'The Short Timers,' or 'In Cold Blood.' I'm a fan of that genre.

I'm not interested in an imaginary world.

I'm really not interested in writing about science at all. I mean, I try to get the information right, the details right. But fiction isn't good at conveying information: It's good at telling stories about people in interesting situations.

I've always been most drawn to fiction that wrestles with that death-fear. Sometimes I joke with my students, 'If no one is in danger of dying, I'm not interested,' but of course I'm not really joking.

'The Notebook' was beautiful, and I was crying because its hero and heroine had died together.

I just want to make stories. They don't have to have a moral or a reason. There might be some mild cautionary notes, but they're not moral. They don't impart any Judeo-Christian ethic of any kind.

I like hearing other writers just about the way they approach writing. It gives me energy for my own work. It's weird; I'm always taking notes about fiction when I'm listening to people talk about craft.

Autobiography is a genre notorious for falsehood.

'The Man in the High Castle' is still the best what-if-the-Axis-had-won novel.

Only in a novel are all things given full play.

I always try to create conflict and drama in my books; it's the engine of the novel.

There is no bigger crime, in the English comic novel, than thinking you are right.

One of my favorite things is to first read a novel and then see the movie. I enjoy picturing the characters and then later, seeing them on the screen, comparing how they're different.

I wanted to write a big novel, something epic in scale.

It's not a good idea to put your wife into a novel; not your latest wife anyway.

People really want to think that these things really happened. I don't know why that important, but I know that when I finish reading a novel or something, I want to know how much of that really happened to this author.

The novel doesn't come into existence until certain methods of reproducing fiction come along.

The great advantage of a novel is you can put in whatever comes into your head - it has the same shape as the human brain.

The job of the novelist is to invent: to embroider, to color, to embellish, to make things up.

I'm a novelist. I'm not a crusader, and I'm not an editorial writer. And I'm not writing fiction to convince anybody of anything.

I've always thought a novelist only has one character, and that is himself or herself. In my case, me.

I'm a novelist, so I can't write about ideas unless they're attached to people.

I'm not a biographer, I'm a novelist.

I get a lot of energy from making things up, which is why I feel I'm a novelist.