Quotes About Fiction

Whether there is such a thing as Reality, of which the various levels are only partial aspects, or whether there are only levels, is something that literature cannot decide. Literature recognizes rather the *reality of the levels.*

Fantasy is like jam. . . . You have to spread it on a solid piece of bread. If not, it remains a shapeless thing . . . out of which you can't make anything.

You're the absolute protagonist of this book, very well; but do you believe that gives you the right to have carnal relations with all the female characters?

The book should be the written counterpart of the unwritten world; its subject should be what does not exist and cannot exist except when written, but whose absence is obscurely felt by that which exists, in its own incompleteness.

But by now all his stories are so saturated with falsehood that anything said about him is false. He's succeeded in this, at least.

yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything; just hope they'll leave you alone.

I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!

When my eyes closed, however, in the darkness I saw that her words had created a new world, like all words that are not true. I

Fiction writing is great, you can make up almost anything.

I'm not someone who quite understands the science of the Force. To me Star Wars was never about science fiction -- it was a spiritual story.

There's always room for a story that can transport people to another place.

In other words, that works of history are mere collections of facts. It is fiction alone that can show us the true nature of human beings

When she was chair of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2010, Daisy Goodwin wrote a controversial essay lamenting the 'unrelenting grimness' of so many novels and pointing out that 'generally great fiction contains light and shade'---not only misery but joy and humor. 'It is time for publishers to stop treating literary fiction as the novelistic equivalent of cod-liver oil: if it's nasty it must be good for you.

Everything had become so Twilight only without the sparklies.

Who was Greg and why was he biting Nina? In fact, how did he get close enough to Nina in order to bite her before she bit him first?

I've always been a big fan of science fiction and of the worlds of the spiritual and the mystic.

The Gospels, written many decades after the fact, are a blend of fact and fantasy—historical fiction—and although the proportions of the blend may differ from scholar to scholar, no credible historians take them at 100 percent face value.

swarmed by bats, abducted by aliens, sprayed with poison gas, had stuff dropped on our heads . . . ," said Coke. "And all of these things actually happened?" asked Dr. McDonald. "You didn't make any of it up?" "Yes, it all happened!" Pep shouted at him. "And a lot of other stuff, too. You could fill a—" "Book!" Dr. McDonald said, his eyes suddenly wide.

Fiction is what you get when you rub two things together," I said. Everybody laughed even though I didn't say anything funny.

That was Mrs. Roopy wearing a powdered wig and an army uniform." She may have been right, but I didn't want to admit it, because I hate her.

Yeah, if Mickey Mouse was a mass murderer.

That was a complete lie. Everybody knows the dungeon is on the third floor.

Nicholas was yanking our chain. Everybody knows there were no schools in dinosaur times. Besides, it would be hard to ride a dinosaur. They don't even make saddles for them. Dr. Nicholas would have had to ride the dinosaur bareback.

Credits Cover art © 2004 by Jim Paillot.