Apocalyptic Fiction Quotes

And I grew up on a steady diet of science fiction, especially apocalyptic and postapocalyptic fiction. ~ Justin Cronin

People are writing post-apocalyptic fiction like there's no tomorrow! ~ Cassandra Page

The day Mother Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? killed Father The Outlaw Josey Wales, they were arguing again about the Pre-Reddening game of Major League Baseball. ~ Nick DiChario

I like animal sidekicks. They seem to be a pretty cool trope of post-apocalyptic fiction - just because if you're going to have this lone protagonist, they're going to need someone to talk to. Dogs are overused, and cats are dumb. So that leaves monkeys. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

Post-apocalyptic fiction is about worlds that have already burned. Apocalyptic fiction is about worlds that are burning.

The End is Nigh is about the match. ~ John Joseph Adams

The lucky ones died in the blasts. They were spared the fate of starvation, cannibalism, rape and slaughter. Where a man could be killed over half-eaten can of corn. ~ Joe Reyes

I haven't been this high-functioning since last century." - Chief Morray, The City Center ~ Simone Pond

Apocalyptic fiction, while ultimately about God's purposes, usually portrays an immediate, human world of competing conspiracies. Whatever happens is orchestrated, coordinated and planned in advance. ~ Virginia Postrel

Catastrophe and exuberance are often partners in the dance of irony. ~ Jeff W. Horton

I think she likes post-apocalyptic fiction so much because she's genuinely happy at the thought that the world might end. ~ Cath Crowley

I write pre-apocalyptic fiction. In other words, I'm not interested in a future where everything is blown to hell, I'd rather write something that helps to prevent it from happening. ~ James Rozoff

We drove past a small church, and the congregation had abandoned the building to stand outside in a circle with their heads bowed, maybe hoping their prayers would get a better signal on the lawn.

Heaven has notoriously bad reception. ~ Atom Yang

Be the cockroach ~ Amber Kizer

Desperation grew teeth. Claws. It became an animal inside me that knew no bounds, unspeakable, just as Jafir had tried to explain to me so long ago. It tore open my darkest thoughts, letting them unfurl like black wings. ~ Mary E. Pearson

I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm. ~ Octavia E. Butler

T.G.T.B.T: too good to be true. ~ Madonna

It's in literature that true life can be found. It's under the mask of fiction that you can tell the truth. ~ Gao Xingjian

Regress towards progress - Dr Wannamaker ~ Lauren Bradshaw

An interesting fiction ... however paradoxical the assertion may appear ... addresses our love of truth- not the mere love of facts expressed by true names and dates, but the love of that higher truth, the truth of nature and principals, which is a primitive law of the human mind. ~ James Fenimore Cooper

I don't have too much time for fiction. ~ Ronald Reagan

Jack coughed slightly and offered his hand. "Hi, uh. I'm Jack."
Kim took it. "Jack what?"
"Huh?"
"Your last name, silly."
"Jackson."
She blinked at him. "Your name is Jack Jackson?"
He blushed. "No, uh, my first name's Rhett, but I hate it, so…"
He gestured to the chair and she sat. Her dress rode up several inches, exposing pleasing long lines of creamy skin. "Well, Jack, what's your field of study?"
"Biological Engineering, Genetics, and Microbiology. Post-doc. I'm working on a research project at the institute."
"Really? Oh, uh, my apple martini's getting a little low."
"I've got that, one second." He scurried to the bar and bought her a fresh one. She sipped and managed to make it look not only seductive but graceful as well.
"What do you want to do after you're done with the project?" Kim continued.
"Depends on what I find."
She sent him a simmering smile. "What are you looking for?"
Immediately, Jack's eyes lit up and his posture straightened. "I started the project with the intention of learning how to increase the reproduction of certain endangered species. I had interest in the idea of cloning, but it proved too difficult based on the research I compiled, so I went into animal genetics and cellular biology. It turns out the animals with the best potential to combine genes were reptiles because their ability to lay eggs was a smoother transition into combining the cells to create a new species, o ~ Kyoko M.

Note well! Whenever you present the actual, simple truth, it is, somehow, always denounced as a lie: they disown it, cast it off, throw it on the parish; whereas the product of your own imagination, the mere figment, the sheer fiction, is adopted, petted, termed pretty, proper, sweetly natural: the little, spurious wretch gets all the comfits, - the honest, lawful bantling, all the cuffs. Such ~ Charlotte Bronte

Love is the net profit on life. ~ Sharon L. Reddy

I know it's not always easy making the smart choice. Giving up things you want to do in exchange for prudence. Or to protect people you care about from worry and fear. But it is something a wise young lady does...I'm verra proud of you for making the wise choice, Isobel." Alexander Lochlannach from Susana and the Scot p. 205 by Sabrina York ~ Sabrina York

I'm a novelist by trade and my job is to write a story rather than reconstruct actual events. ~ Sara Sheridan

I just ... ," Cath started again: "I realized that I'm not cut out for fiction-writing."
Professor Piper blinked and pulled her head back. "What are you talking about? You're exactly cut out for it. You're a Butterick pattern, Cath
this is what you were meant to do. ~ Rainbow Rowell

We're in a period right now where nobody asks any questions about psychology. No one has any feeling for human motivation. No one talks about sexuality in terms of emotional needs and symbolism and the legacy of childhood. Sexuality has been politicized--"Don't ask any questions!" "No discussion!" "Gay is exactly equivalent to straight!" And thus in this period of psychological blindness or inertness, our art has become dull. There's nothing interesting being written--in fiction or plays or movies. Everything is boring because of our failure to ask psychological questions.

So I say there is a big parallel between Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton--aside from their initials! Young feminists need to understand that this abusive behavior by powerful men signifies their sense that female power is much bigger than they are! These two people, Clinton and Cosby, are emotionally infantile--they're engaged in a war with female power. It has something to do with their early sense of being smothered by female power--and this pathetic, abusive and criminal behavior is the result of their sense of inadequacy.


Now, in order to understand that, people would have to read my first book, "Sexual Personae"--which of course is far too complex for the ordinary feminist or academic mind! It's too complex because it requires a sense of the ambivalence of human life. Everything is not black and white, for heaven's sake! We are formed by all kinds of strange or vague memories fr ~ Camille Paglia

Yet, the quest for knowledge will overcome us and we must know. And, at last, we must see where the road ends, even if it be the cliff. ~ Nancy B. Brewer

When you're making something big, whether it's long-form fiction or a big piece of software, whatever that is, you're having a very intimate and extended conversation with the work materials themselves. ~ David Wroblewski

You're a smart one. You know as good as me and as Flick that there is no Promised Land. Matilda's an orphan, a daughter of dead gods. But Ancestors is real and their spirits are at work. Baby sun giving out is how they making a fuss. ~ Rivers Solomon

I have an idea and a first line
and that suggests the rest of it. I have little concept of what I'm going to say, or where it's going. I have some idea of how long it's going to be
but not what will happen or what the themes will be. That's the intrigue of doing it
it's a process of discovery. You get to discover what you're going to say and what it's going to mean. ~ T.C. Boyle

Every happy moments looks perfect till it gets messy ~ Sheeja Jose

Daniel, I was asked of a budding author, how do you know if your story is on track? My answer: I start by knowing my intention, my target. Then, with purpose, I write the scene that unfolds before me, as faithfully as is human. - Daniel LaMonte ~ Daniel LaMonte

His life, measured in space and time, will take up a mere few lines, which my ignorance will abbreviate further. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

I am willing to help and love myself. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

You people do not have to live like this!" the man pleaded. "We are humans, made in the image of God. No machine has the right to order us around." The man reached inside his box, no bigger than a foot square, and took out a small black book. "Here is the truth. Read it!"
Before anyone could act, one of the Sentries aimed its red eye at the babbling man, and shot out a deadly energy ray. With a final shout of defiance, the man fell to the ground, dead. The contents of his container spilling out onto the spaceport's floor. Marcellus looked down at the items, so precious to the man: they were copies of The Koran and The Bible. ~ Donald Allen Kirch

Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it. For that reason, it is not unfair that one disobedience in a garden should contaminate all humanity; for that reason it is not unjust that the crucifixion of a single Jew should be sufficient to save it. ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Todayart is moving in a direction of which our fathers would never even have dreamed.We stand before the new pictures as in a dream and we hear the apocalyptic horsemen in the air. ~ Franz Marc

The way we envision the stars is by imagining they're attached to a giant invisible sphere surrounding the earth. It is a total fiction, really - just a construction we came up with to help us get our heads around the complexity of it all ... The ecliptic, put simply is the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. But since we all live here on earth, we observe the sun to be moving along this plane instead. Why? Because what would be the point of looking at things from the perspective of the sun? That's no use to anyone ... Ergo, it's an imaginary circle, as it's only a part of our human construction of the cosmos. ~ Benjamin Wood

I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful - nonfiction only, please. ~ Gabrielle Zevin

Just because your electronics are better than ours, you aren't necessarily superior in any way. Look, imagine that you humans are a man in LA with a brand-new Trujillo and we are a nuhp in New York with a beat-up old Ford. The two fellows start driving toward St. Louis. Now, the guy in the Trujillo is doing 120 on the interstates, and the guy in the Ford is putting along at 55; but the human in the Trujillo stops in Vegas and puts all of his gas money down the hole of a blackjack table, and the determined little nuhp cruises along for days until at last he reaches his goal. It's all a matter of superior intellect and the will to succeed.
Your people talk a lot about going to the stars, but you just keep putting your money into other projects, like war and popular music and international athletic events and resurrecting the fashions of previous decades. If you wanted to go into space, you would have. ~ George Alec Effinger

The world doesn't owe you anything because you're in it, but you owe yourself the world because it is in you. ~ Kat Kaelin

In reading, in literature and poetry, I found an artistic freedom that I didn't see at Woolworth's. I would read everything from Shakespeare to science fiction ... sometimes a book a day. ~ Frederick Lenz

He had the muscular definition of a man who had spent his life restraining elephants in heat. ~ Taona Dumisani Chiveneko

It takes a long time to write a book. I'm not going to spend that much time trying to deliver a message. The reason I do it is because I want to understand something myself. It's not a delivery device, it's an inquiry device. Didactic fiction to my mind never works. It backfires. ~ Ruth Ozeki

Novels are political not because writers carry party cards
some do, I do not
but because good fiction is about identifying with and understanding people who are not necessarily like us. By nature all good novels are political because identifying with the other is political. At the heart of the 'art of the novel' lies the human capacity to see the world through others' eyes. Compassion is the greatest strength of the novelist. ~ Orhan Pamuk

A work of fiction grips our imaginations because we care, both about the characters in the tale and about ourselves. To put it another way, we are concerned about the outcome of the story because what is happening to the characters could happen to us. ~ Donald Maass

When you read my stories, I want you to see the world through my eyes; as if I based my work on you. Come away with me, and I'll show you a world that you've never seen before or ever want to leave. ~ Nila N. Brown

Have you forgiven yourself?" The quiet question slipped between his ribs to stagger his breath. "Abby squeezed his hand. "That's the hardest part, I've found." A thickness crept up Zach's throat. "How do you manage it?" "Little by little. I take comfort in the scriptures that talk about how God removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west, how He will remember our sins no more, how He urges us to cast our cares on Him. ~ Karen Witemeyer

To be interested in short stories, you have to be interested in fiction as an art form. ~ Deborah Eisenberg