1452 Fiction Quotes for You to Enjoy

Occasionally I write a small piece or the odd lecture in English, and I teach in English, but my fiction is always written in German. W. G. Sebald

Small Write Small Piece Written Piece Occasionally Always Odd Lecture German Fiction Teach English

However far fiction writers stray from their own lives and experiences - and I stray pretty far from mine - I think, ultimately, that we may be writing what we need to write in some way, albeit unconsciously. Wally Lamb

My primary ambition is to be a fiction writer... Being a critic wasn't an aspiration of mine. Walter Kirn

Ambition Mine Critic Writer Primary Being Fiction Fiction Writer Aspiration

I read somewhere once that in the 1960s, fiction writers were troubled by the notion that life was becoming stranger and more sensational than made-up stories could ever hope to be. Our new problem - more profound, I think - is that life no longer resembles a story. Events intersect but don't progress. People interact but don't make contact. Walter Kirn

Life Hope People Problem Events Progress Somewhere Think Our Once More Could Troubled Writers Contact Longer New Make Read Becoming Were Than Interact Sensational Fiction Fiction Writers Stories Story Notion Stranger Resembles Ever Profound Intersect

Size matters in fiction, but so does lack of size. Everything else being equal, fat novels tend to be perceived as serious, very thin ones as more honest, more real. Writers address these age-old expectations by filling their big books with philosophy and cramming their little ones with feeling. Walter Kirn

Feeling Big Matters Else Everything Address Books Everything Else Philosophy Perceived More Tend Writers Equal Does Real Very Expectations Lack Being Size Fiction Little Age-Old Serious Novels Filling Thin Fat Honest

I've never talked to anyone writing a book on me. I've had so much written about me that is made up, usually something that seems silly enough or weird enough to get remarked upon, and it's pretty much all fiction. Warren Beatty

If you write any kind of fiction about America, you immediately have to start doing some research about guns, so in some ways, 'Gun Machine' is just the culmination of 20 years of reading about guns. Warren Ellis

I like science fiction and physics, things like that. Planets being sucked into black holes, and the various vortexes that create possibility, and what happens on the other side of the black hole. To me it's the microcosmic study of the macrocosmic universe in man, and that's why I'm attracted to it. Wesley Snipes

Me Man Science Physics Black Universe Other Side Possibility Black Hole Black Holes Various Study Like Attracted Science Fiction Being Fiction Happens Hole Holes Create Planets Sucked Why Things

The interesting thing about fiction from a writer's standpoint is that the characters come to life within you. And yet who are they and where are they? They seem to have as much or more vitality and complexity as the people around you. Whitley Strieber

I'm very lucky in that I was inspired by science fiction while I was a little kid, and I was interested in science and technology and was encouraged to pursue those interests. Wil Wheaton

Technology Science Science And Technology Kid Those Pursue Inspired Science Fiction Encouraged Very Fiction While Interested Little Little Kid Interests Lucky

I always wanted to write fiction. Always. As far back as I can remember it's been integral to my sense of myself - everything else was always a displacement activity. Will Self

Myself Remember Sense Else Back Everything Everything Else Write Always Integral Been Fiction Wanted Far Displacement Activity

In truth, even if they have an imperfect insight into their own methods, I still slightly mistrust writers of fiction who are assured literary critics; it makes me suspect that they favour the word over the world it should describe. Such scribes fall victim too easily to the solecism of equating style with morality. Will Self

Truth Me World Word Style Fall Own Victim Too Assured Slightly Easily Favour Critics Insight Morality Imperfect Writers Over Makes Mistrust Still Methods Suspect Fiction Literary Should Who Describe Even

What fiction offers us is an intimacy shorn of the messy contingencies of human existence - gender, race, class or age. Those moments of transcendence when we exclaim 'You know exactly what I mean!' depend for much of their force on the anonymous character of the intimacy between writer and reader. Will Self

Character You Class Age Gender Depend Intimacy Those Exactly Exactly What Writer Between Know Force Anonymous Reader Messy Existence Offers Human Fiction Race Human Existence Mean Us Much Moments

The British and American literary worlds operate in an odd kind of symbiosis: our critics think our contemporary novelists are not the stuff of greatness whereas certain contemporary Americans indubitably are. Their critics often advance the exact opposite: British fiction is cool, American naff. Will Self

Think Worlds Our Kind Exact Exact Opposite Critics Advance Stuff Contemporary Operate Odd Opposite Greatness American Often Fiction Whereas Literary Certain Cool Novelists British

The whole aesthetics of computers very much feeds into my OCD. They fill my head with obsessionalities and my actions become very repetitive. It seems quite inimical to the dreamy state out of which fiction comes which seems so much less causally repetitive than the way one works on computers. Will Self

I didn't have a manifesto. I had some discontent. It seemed to me that midcentury mainstream American science fiction had often been triumphalist and militaristic, a sort of folk propaganda for American exceptionalism. William Gibson

Me Science Folk Some Propaganda Seemed Had Mainstream Sort Science Fiction Discontent Been American Often Fiction Manifesto

I think that our future has lost that capital F we used to spell it with. The science fiction future of my childhood has had a capital F - it was assumed to be an American Future because America was the future. The Future was assumed to be inherently heroic, and a lot of other things, as well. William Gibson

A snappy label and a manifesto would have been two of the very last things on my own career want list. That label enabled mainstream science fiction to safely assimilate our dissident influence, such as it was. Cyberpunk could then be embraced and given prizes and patted on the head, and genre science fiction could continue unchanged. William Gibson

Science Own Our Would Embraced My Own Given Unchanged Could Head Mainstream Genre Safely Science Fiction Continue Been Snappy Label Very Prizes List Influence Want Fiction Manifesto Then Things Assimilate Last Career Two