Quotes About Fiction

What if the novel in you is one you yourself would never read? A beach novel, a blockbuster, a long, windy, character-driven literary drama that ends sadly? What if the one novel in you is the opposite of your idea of yourself?

Write fiction about your life and pay with your life, at least three times. Here is the ax.

51. What if the novel in you is one you yourself would never read? A beach novel, a blockbuster, a long, windy, character-driven literary drama that ends sadly? What if the one novel in you is the opposite of your idea of yourself?

Nothing would be further from the reality.

You can tell when a Hollywood historical film was made by looking at the eye makeup of the leading ladies, and you can tell the date of an old science fiction novel by every word on the page. Nothing dates harder and faster and more strangely than the future.

We had a few non-fiction books at home, but my dad was of the opinion that fiction was a complete and utter waste of time because it wasn't real - so what was the point of reading it?

Having to respond to things that are made up or untrue tends to be a waste of time.

I've stopped reading about the death of books because it's wasteful and morbid and insulting to the authors, agents, publishers, booksellers, critics, and readers that keep the world community of fiction interesting.

I actually watch 'The Walking Dead.' I like 'The Walking Dead' a lot.

I like fiction. I love all sorts of love stories, I think. I even watched '17 Again.'

I grew up not reading fiction; I watched movies and read comic books, and one of the ways I taught myself to think about narrative was through film.

I can remember watching 'Lord of the Rings' and being truly regretful that I wasn't a being in that world.

It shouldn't be so difficult to determine what a planet is. When you're watching a science fiction show like 'Star Trek' and they show up at some object in space and turn on the viewfinder, the audience and the people in the show know immediately whether it's a planet or a star or a comet or an asteroid.

I got hooked to American news like a great TV season. It plays like fiction. I would come home from work, and I would put it on, and I would stay up until 2 in the morning watching it and get up in the morning and watch it.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it's not imagination. It's just a way of watching.

I try to imagine the scenes as I'm writing them as if I were watching them play like a film.

Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels more like watching people reveal themselves, ever more deeply, more intimately.

I miss watching TV and thinking they were all real. I used to feel like that about 'Neighbours.'

I needed my life as a springboard for my fiction. I have to have something solid under my feet when I write. I'm not a fantasist. I bounce up and down on the diving board, and I go into the water of fiction. But I've got to begin in life so I can pump life into it throughout.

TV and film were always governing passions of mine, and that first wave of great HBO shows in the early years of the millennium was feeding my desire for fiction more than the books I was reading.

If we made the 'Batman' games more realistic, you'd have to be Bruce Wayne for half the game, counting his money and dating supermodels.

The joy of great fiction is that it transports the reader to another world, where new characters live in otherwise unimaginable ways. It is one of the most powerful ways of generating empathy that I know.

When reading fiction, we cannot automatically assume that what we read is fact.

I'm not really a pitcher; I just play one in the movies.