Quotes About Fiction

I had done 12 little romance books, and I decided I wanted to move into crime fiction.

It wasn't a decision to become a writer. I wanted to become a writer of crime fiction. I was very specific.

I think there's a concept that crime fiction is or was male-dominated, but it really never has been.

I love crime fiction, and I'm proud to be part of it, but I'm not without criticism for my own genre.

I think that I had read so much fiction that the craft itself sort of sank into me. I didn't read any 'how to' books or attend any popular-fiction-writing classes or have a critique group. For many years into my writing, I didn't even know another author. For me, a lot of reading was the best teacher.

I cry in movies a lot, and over books.

Fiction needs writers and readers, and writers should cultivate both.

No, come to think of it, I don't think the Cure will end, but I can make up an ending if you want me to.

Some of my most enjoyable moments as a writer have come while conjuring a meet cute.

A lot of stories that have fascinated me are tabloid stories that have come from other newspapers, like 'The New York Times.'

The tabloids create their own stories about people's lives that don't exist.

I don't tackle major global events. I don't like to read about something - an event, a cataclysm - in fiction for the sake of reading it.

Once you create a believable fictional universe, you suck the audiences into that world and they tag along for the ride.

His name is 'Mr. Spock.' And the first view of him can be almost frightening - a face so heavy-lidded and satanic you might almost expect him to have a forked tail. Probably half Martian, he has a slightly reddish complexion and semi-pointed ears.

I do end up revealing a lot online, but in books, what I reveal is more tailored. Authors can couch revelations in fiction. With social media, no one wants to watch or read if it doesn't feel authentic, so you end up giving away a lot of yourself.

There must be possible a fiction which, leaving sociology and case histories to the scientists, can arrive at the truth about the human condition, here and now, with all the bright magic of the fairy tale.

Not to be too 'Tale of Two Cities' about it, but I find writing a memoir easier than writing fiction, and more difficult.

When I was a little girl, I thought I was Sydney Carton in Dickens' 'A Tale of Two Cities.' I don't think anyone else did.

Nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a marvelous tale.

Aside from that reservation, a fictive tale even has the advantage of manifesting symbolic necessity more purely to the extent that we may believe its conception arbitrary.

People write fiction in their minds all the time - every time we read a 'human interest' news story, or a true crime tale, we find ourselves fascinated because we're trying to understand why people behave the way they do, why they make the choices they do, how we become who we become.

I adore the work of Lucas and Spielberg. I'm certainly not trying to minimize their talents, but I'd love to see what they could do when they aren't leading us from reality.

I'm no longer religious, but the Bible fascinates me. Hardly anyone reads it anymore, but it's got everything: it's a book of poetry, it's a book of principle, it's a book of stories, and of myths and of epic tales, a book of histories and a book of fictions, of riddles, fables, parables and allegories.

People don't like the true and simple; they like fairy tales and humbug.