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?'

Every time I write a nonfiction book I get sued.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Nonfiction is never going to die.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again.

I still believe nonfiction is the most important literature to come out of the second half of the 20th century.

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.

I don't actually have a one wellspring of inspiration. Though I'm most often inspired while reading - both fiction and nonfiction.

I contend that in the kind of nonfiction I write, and that other people also pursue, anything is permissible provided the reader knows what you're taking liberties with.

I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives.

Ironically, in today's marketplace successful nonfiction has to be unbelievable, while successful fiction must be believable.

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