Fiction Quotes

I love painting and music, of course. I don't know nearly as much about them as I know about poetry. I've certainly been influenced by fiction. I was overwhelmed by War and Peace when I read it, and I didn't read it until I was in my late 20s.

Biography is a very definite region bounded on the north by history, on the south by fiction, on the east by obituary, and on the west by tedium.

I read a lot; fiction and non-fiction are the mediums I find most edifying and inspiring. I watch movies and listen to music and take lots and lots of walks. Nature is a nice reset button for me, it's how I get a lot of thinking done.

Hack fiction exploits curiosity without really satisfying it or making connections between it and anything else in the world.

I do one Xanth novel a year, because at the moment that is all that publishers will accept; they don't want any other type of fiction from me, so Xanth pays my way.

Tasmanian history is a study of human isolation unprecedented except in science fiction - namely, complete isolation from other humans for 10,000 years.

Jerry reversed the usual formula of the superhero who goes to another planet. He put the superhero in ordinary, familiar surroundings, instead of the other way around, as was done in most science fiction. That was the first time I can recall that it had ever been done.

So much emotion goes into writing fiction.

I definitely gravitate towards quality genre projects and genre of any kind whether it's science fiction, horror or really anything. I'm just drawn to quality. I don't think 'Darkness Falls' is horror; there isn't any gore by any stretch of the imagination.

For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.

Women are far and away the bigger consumers of fiction than men, but men are still far and away the more reviewed, the more critically esteemed, the more respected. That can get frustrating.

Science fiction works best when it stimulates debate.

If a woman writes about family and about the connections between people and what it means to be alive in this day and time, it's called women's fiction. And if a man does it, it's nominated for a National Book Award. What - you can't have a heart and a penis? That doesn't make sense.

I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction.

To newspapers and publishing houses I urge the use of fact over fiction, freedom of the press, and responsibility at all times.

It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

I finally decided one day, reading science fiction magazines of the time, I could do at least as well as some of these people are doing. So I finally made a serious effort.

People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction and philosophy.

For me the purest and truest art in the world is science fiction.

When I was growing up, the exam system didn't allow you to write fiction, so you never did.

Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.

The acceptance that all that is solid has melted into the air, that reality and morality are not givens but imperfect human constructs, is the point from which fiction begins.

I think you can get away with being a bit more political in science fiction.

You really have to soak up the culture of the people to get it right. If you're making a fiction film, it's entertainment, but you want it to be as real as possible.

Some ideas you have to chew on, then roll them around a lot, play with them before you can turn them into funky science fiction.

It's always a mixture of fiction and your own story. It's more I recreate atmospheres and moods through songs.

It's important, I think, for a writer of fiction to maintain an awareness of the pace and shape of the book as he's writing it. That is, he should be making an object, not chattering.

Even though my songs may sound very personal, to me most of them are fiction. It is a great way for me to be able to live a fantasy life as a writer because I get to be someone else, someplace else for three and a half minutes, just like the listener.

Science fiction is no more written for scientists that ghost stories are written for ghosts.

Truth is not only stranger than fiction, it is more interesting.