Nonfiction Quotes

I find interesting characters or lessons that resonate with people and sometimes I write about them in the sports pages, sometimes I write them in a column, sometimes in a novel, sometimes a play or sometimes in nonfiction. But at the core I always say to myself, 'Is there a story here? Is this something people want to read?'

But I don't read a lot of fiction. I prefer the nonfiction stuff.

Every time I write a nonfiction book I get sued.

I used to distinguish between my fiction and nonfiction in terms of superiority or inferiority.

I don't actually have a one wellspring of inspiration. Though I'm most often inspired while reading - both fiction and nonfiction. I subscribe to National Geographic, Scientific American, Discover, and a slew of other magazines. And it is while reading articles for pleasure and interest that an interesting 'What if?' will pop into my head.

You can tell a more over-the-top incredible story if you use a nonfiction form.

Writing fiction is for me a fraught business, an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel, and sometimes all the way through. The work process is totally different from writing nonfiction. You have to sit down every day and make it up.

My entire career, in fiction or nonfiction, I have reported and written about people who are not like me.

Now that I'm taking some time off from school, I've been reading a lot to make sure I don't forget everything. It's mostly classics and nonfiction accounts from actors, directors and writers from the '40s and '50s.

A typical biography relying upon individuals' notorious memories and the anecdotes they've invented contains a high degree of fiction, yet is considered 'nonfiction.'

I've seen a lot of the United States, having stayed in so many different cities and towns for work. It's such a strange and fascinating country, and instead of learning about it through a textbook, I would rather discover its history and traditions and institutions through fiction and nonfiction writers.

I think Henry Miller has had huge influence not because he wrote about sex, but because the memoir or the nonfiction novel has become such a monumental force in American publishing, if not in literature.

I'm working on a nonfiction book on Nepal and a novel about diasporas.

Whenever you have two characters in a book, whether it's a novel or nonfiction, you run the risk that the reader is going to like one more than the other. They're going to read one chapter and say, 'I can't wait to get back to the other guy.'

I like to get paid for doing basic research, so it's pleasant to write some nonfiction about it.

Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem.

In nonfiction, you have that limitation, that constraint, of telling the truth.

I really enjoy doing both, but I didn't write nonfiction until 1994.

People respect nonfiction but they read novels.

I've written six novels and four pieces of nonfiction, so I don't really have a genre these days.

Nonfiction is never going to die.

I don't think the potential for comics in nonfiction has been exploited nearly as much as it could be.

I would, however, start writing fiction about 10 years before I actually did, because it's such great fun to do, many times more creative than nonfiction.

Nonfiction is more personal for me. It's more personal in that it's more direct, and actually it's always been more direct, even when I first started doing pieces.

I've written many nonfiction books, but that's a special gift.

When I'm working on a novel of my own, I try to read mostly nonfiction, although sometimes I break down and peek at something else.

Beyond that, I seem to be compelled to write science fiction, rather than fantasy or mysteries or some other genre more likely to climb onto bestseller lists even though I enjoy reading a wide variety of literature, both fiction and nonfiction.

When I'm not writing, I read loads of fiction, but I've been writing quite constantly lately so I've been reading a lot of nonfiction - philosophy, religion, science, history, social or cultural studies.

I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives.

But with nonfiction, the task is very straightforward: Do the research, tell the story.