Quotes About Perspective

I think, like, fiction has a place to understand those things that are hardest to understand that non-fiction can't ever get at.

In my mind, there's not a great difference between what people call fiction and non-fiction. So in that sense, I'm like an early-18th-century person. I actually believe there's one way of writing.

I don't know what that line is between fiction and non-fiction that other people have in their minds, but to me, when I'm writing, it's just like whatever the next sentence should be is the next sentence. It's not this artificial division.

Among non-fiction authors I like Richard Bach, Nichiren Daishonin, Burton Watson, Deepak Chopra and MJ Akbar.

I don't mind being with a bunch of chicks. I'm around boys non-stop. I'm totally cool having a break from dudes.

Some of the happiest people I know have none of the things the world insists are necessary for satisfaction and joy.

It's really never fair to judge people because none of us know what's going on inside anyone else's head.

After losing Dad, there was the idea that none of us have forever. It really affects you. It makes you want to live each day as if it's your last.

None of us should assume stuff.

To the biographer all lives bar none are dramatic constructions.

Nonfiction is both easier and harder to write than fiction. It's easier because the facts are already laid out before you, and there is already a narrative arc. What makes it harder is that you are not free to use your imagination and creativity to fill in any missing gaps within the story.

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

I find that nonfiction writers are the likeliest to turn out interesting novels.

I find now I'm reading a lot more nonfiction, simply because every time I read fiction, I think I can write it better. But every time I read nonfiction, I learn things.

When you deal with nonfiction you deal with human characters.

I view myself as a fiction writer who just happens to write nonfiction. I think I look at the world through a fiction-writer's eyes.

I believe every time you film anybody, you create reality with that person - whether it's fiction or nonfiction.

If you're reading a novel that was written in 1964, you'll find out more about 1964 than if you're reading a nonfiction book written in 1964 because you're hearing how language was actually used and hearing what people's actual concerns were at the beginning of the 1960s.

By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses; one misses more nonsense than sense.

The reflexive allergy to L.A. that a lot of New Yorkers have, I feel like it's kind of nonsense.

The idea that it's only the young or people who've grown up with a technology who can appreciate it. Complete nonsense!

What I say or do here won't matter much, nor should it.

We are not angels. Nor are we the devils you have made us out to be.

Nor bigots who but one way see, through blinkers of authority.