Quotes About Fiction

Toda ficción es una impostura; lo que importa es sentir que ha sido soñada sinceramente.

If the characters of a fictional work can be readers or spectators, we, its readers or spectators, can be fictions.

Delle filosofie, nell'emisfero boreale, accade ció che nell'emisfero australe accade dei sostantivi: il fatto che ogni filosofia non possa essere, in partenza, che un gioco dialettico, una Philosophie des Als Ob, ha contribuito a moltiplicarle.

Tôi luôn m??ng t??ng r?ng Thiên ???ng cÅ©ng t?a tá»±a nhÆ° má»™t thÆ° vi?n v?y

Jorge Luis Borges

Uno de los hábitos de la mente es la invención de imaginaciones horribles.

Son el irresponsable juego de un tímido que se animó a escribir cuentos y que se distrajo en falsear y tergiversar (sin justificación estética alguna vez) ajenas historias.

En todas las ficciones, cada vez que un hombre se enfrenta con diversas alternativas, opta por una y elimina las otras; en la del casi inextricable Ts'ui Pên, opta —simultáneamente— por todas. Crea, así, diversos porvenires, diversos tiempos, que también proliferan y se bifurcan.

De El Sur, que es acaso mi mejor cuento, básteme prevenir que es posible leerlo como directa narración de hechos novelescos y también de otro modo.

A realidade não tem a mínima obrigação de ser interessante ... A realidade pode prescindir dessa obrigação, mas não as hipóteses.

The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes! A better course of procedure is to pretend that these books already exist, and then to offer a resume, a commentary … More reasonable, more inept, more indolent, I have preferred to write notes upon imaginary books. —Prologue to The Garden of Forking Paths, 10 November 1941

El hecho de que toda filosofía sea de antemano un juego dialéctico, una Philosophie des Als Ob, ha contribuido a multiplicarlas.

Writing is nothing more than a guided dream

It was the stuff of Alexandre Dumas' novels as it would be of George Sand's; Romanticism had some roots in reality.

facts of the mind made manifest in a fiction of matter,' as my friend the late Maya Deren once phrased the mystery.

a curious characteristic of our unformed species that we live and model our lives through acts of make-believe.

I don't think you can tell the objective truth about a person. That's why people write novels.

There's a good feeling about them. It's something I like to find in fiction. So many writers master form and technique, but get so little feeling into their work. I think that's important.

Hallo, Rabbit," he said, "is that you?" "Let's pretend it isn't," said Rabbit, "and see what happens." "I've got a message for you." "I'll give it to him.

Quello che mi interessa sapere è se scrive delle cose vere o delle cose inventate. Le rispondo che cerco di scrivere delle storie vere, ma, a un certo punto, la storia diventa insopportabile proprio per la sua verità e allora sono costretto a cambiarla. Le dico che cerco di raccontare la mia storia, ma che non ci riesco, non ne ho il coraggio, mi fa troppo male. Allora abbellisco tutto e descrivo le cose non come sono accadute, ma come avrei voluto che accadessero.

Pero yo creo que puedo escribir lo que me dé la gana, aunque sea imposible, aunque no sea verdad.

In vain does the disguised traveller inwardly rebel against the influences and impressions which are wearing away his real self. The impressions of the past lose more and more their hold on him until they fade away, leaving the traveller hopelessly struggling in the toils of his own fiction, and the rôle he had assumed soon becomes second nature with him.

In books, even the very best boy detectives are dismissed with a laugh. In real life, they're sent to psychologists.

People pick the stories they want to be true and they believe them. It doesn't make the stories true.