Quotes About Fiction

Near Shepherd's Bush two thousand Beta-Minus mixed doubles were playing Riemann-surface tennis.

The trouble with fiction is that it makes too much sense, whereas reality never makes sense.

But then the course of events takes no account of verisimilitude. Fiction has to be probable; fact does not.

Ca?y k?opot z fikcj? literack? polega na tym - rzek? John Rivers - ?e za du?o w niej sensu. W rzeczywisto?ci nigdy nie ma sensu

Un giorno, che eravamo seduti in un parco, mi spiegò che tutti abbiamo una certa idea di noi stessi, magari appena abbozzata, confusa, ma alla fine siamo portati ad avere una certa idea di noi stessi, e la verità è che spesso quell'idea la facciamo coincidere con un certo personaggio immaginario in cui ci riconosciamo.

Myth could be as sustaining as reality - sometimes even more so.

But remember, that for every cheating wife in Botswana, there are five hundred and fifty cheating husbands. Mma Makutsi whistled. That is an amazing figure, she said. Where did you read that? Nowhere, chuckled Mma Ramotswe. I made it up. But that doesn't stop it from being true.

Writers just play out their fantasies in their books. They are often very unstable, tricky people, Bertie. Writers are usually very bad at real life and feel that they have to create imaginary lives to make up for it.

She craves romance. She dreams that she is the heroine of every book she reads.

There are some catastrophes that a poor writer's pen cannot describe and which he is obliged to leave to the imagination of his readers with a bald statement of the facts.

No one is as brave, as adventurous or as skillful as D'Artagnan, without at the same time being inclined to be a dreamer.

What all that means is that readers fundamentally want to feel something, not about your story, but about themselves. They want to play. They want to anticipate, guess, think, and judge. They want to finish a story and feel competent. They want to feel like they've been through something. They want to connect with your characters and live their fictional experience, or believe that they have. Creating

We are surrounded by symbols and take them for granted. They had to start somewhere, though, and gained their meaning because of historical use, which is suggestive for fiction writers. Anything can be turned into a symbol.

The fact is that roughly two-thirds of all fiction purchases are made because the consumer is already familiar with the author.

A work of fiction grips our imaginations because we care, both about the characters in the tale and about ourselves. To put it another way, we are concerned about the outcome of the story because what is happening to the characters could happen to us.

We experience life as feelings. It's funny, then, that so much fiction is written to minimize feelings or leave them out altogether. It's as if emotions are not a fit subject or writing about them is too simplistic. Even fiction that celebrates feelings, romance for instance, can sometimes work with only a limited and familiar emotional palette. We can wallow in emotional content yet feel curiously empty.

We never know them well. Do we?" "Who?" "Real people." "What do you mean, real people?" "As opposed to people in books," Paola explained. "They're the only ones we ever know well. Or know truly.

Pope Joan was an excellent read.

There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.

I nearly clutched my bosom and gasped like Melanie from Twelve Oaks. But of course I didn't. ~ Dorothea Benton Frank, The Hurricane Sisters

The importance of novels and short stories in our society is great. Fiction supplies the only philosophy that many readers know; it establishes their ethical, social, and material standards; it confirms them in their prejudices or opens their minds to a wider world. The movies have not undermined the influence of fiction. On the contrary, they have extended its field, carrying the ideas which are already current among reader to those too young, too impatient, or too uneducated to read.

Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.

Oh, woe to the woman who sticks her nose in a book and forgets that real life is not always destined for Happily Ever After.

Judge Dee mystery novels