Bad Fiction Quotes

Outlines are the last resource of bad fiction writers who wish to God they were writing masters' theses. ~ Stephen King

Two pages of the passive voice - just about any business document ever written, in other words, not to mention reams of bad fiction - make me want to scream. It's weak, it's circuitous, and it's frequently tortuous, as well. How about this: My first kiss will always be recalled by me as how my romance with Shayna was begun. Oh, man - who farted, right? A simpler way to express this idea - sweeter and more forceful, as well - might be this: My romance with Shayna began with our first kiss. I'll never forget it. I'm not in love with this because it uses with twice in four words, but at least we're out of that awful passive voice. ~ Stephen King

The chief offense in bad fiction: we sense that characters are being manipulated, forced to do things they would not really do. ~ John Gardner

He was talking about hire purchase. precredit cards. A different way of getting the poor into debt, but I think he was right. It was nice when ordinary people could take a holiday in Spain, of course, but easy credit is what started the cultural rot. Tourism depends on lots of people everywhere with loads of disposable wealth, which means all kinds of changes through a place a cultivates it. The real, messy, informative past disappears to be overlaid with bad fiction, with simplified folklore, easy answers. Memory needs to remain complex, debatable. Without those qualities it is mere nostalgic sentimentality. Commodified identity. Souls bough and sold. ~ Michael Moorcock

Though they have things in common, good writing and talented writing are not the same.
[…]
If you start with a confused, unclear, and badly written story, and apply the rules of good writing to it, you can probably turn it into a simple, logical, clearly written story. It will still not be a good one. The major fault of eighty-five to ninety-five percent of all fiction is that it is banal and dull.
Now old stories can always be told with new language. You can even add new characters to them; you can use them to dramatize new ideas. But eventually even the new language, characters, and ideas lose their ability to invigorate.
Either in content or in style, in subject matter or in rhetorical approach, fiction that is too much like other fiction is bad by definition. However paradoxical it sounds, good writing as a set of strictures (that is, when the writing is good and nothing more) produces most bad fiction. On one level or another, the realization of this is finally what turns most writers away from writing.
Talented writing is, however, something else. You need talent to write fiction.
Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader's mind - vividly, forcefully - that good writing, which stops with clarity and logic, doesn't. ~ Samuel R. Delany

This is one of the problems with reality: the extent to which it resembles bad fiction. ~ Mark O'Connell

Morality in the general is well enough known by men, but the particular refinements of virtue are unknown by most persons; thus the majority of parents, without knowing it and without intending it, give very bad examples to their children. ~ Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot

The question is: how bad do things have to get before you will do something about it? Where is your line in the sand? If you don't enforce the constitutional limitations on your government very soon, you are likely to find out what World War III will be like. ~ Michael Badnarik

So let's not ruin this by thinking too much about tomorrow. Don't make a wonderful weekend into a bad Monday. ~ James Patterson

bad, how likely is it to come ~ Amy Tan

Science fiction is the very literature of change. ~ Frederik Pohl

Those people who think the same thoughts every day, most of them negative, have fallen into bad mental habits. Rather than focusing on all the good in their lives and thinking of ways to make things even better, they are captives of their pasts. ~ Robin S. Sharma

No child is bad from the beginning, they just imitate their atmosphere. ~ Prince

The Internet is the aggregate of human derpitude.

Listening to the Internet without being confident you've found a well-curated garden relative to the area of concern is a bad idea. ~ Jeff Alexander

Now, we all have stories of how we got here, and prob-probably some of you feel angry who whoever it is who's left you here. But you must try and remember that they were like that because that's how they were taught to be. You m-must try to forgive them. Baby cuckoos can't unlearn their bad habits. But we should try to, and because what you learn as a ch-child you will pass on to people around you, from now on this house is going to be a house of happiness. From this evening on every single one of us is going to consider other people's feelings. ~ Georgia Byng

I love how you're so trusting with me," he murmured and leaned in. His lips brushed my cheekbone as he said, "I used to hate it." He sighed, long and meaningful and sexy. "I used to think it was a bad thing to give me so much, but now, when you close your eyes and just hang on for the ride, for whatever I have planned for you?" He took my earlobe between his lips and I gripped him tighter. "That makes me absolutely burn up when you do that. ~ Shelly Crane

I bizarrely think that this [Sin City] is the perfect date movie. If a guy took me on a date to see this movie, I would marry him, for sure. It's bad-ass chicks and rad dudes, who are sexy, all over the place, and there's so much cool action. ~ Jessica Alba

If you spend your whole life worrying about getting hurt, then you aren't really living. You don't want to shield yourself so much from the bad stuff that nothing good gets to you either. ~ Chris Colfer

I have always maintained that a man can be as good or bad depending upon his life-partner. ~ Bunny Reuben

When you think of me as a football player, I would like for people to think that I put it on the line every time. Good or bad, win or lose, I put it on the line. ~ Joe Greene

The world's not black and white," she tells me. "Life doesn't have good guys and bad guys or a beginning, middle, and end. Not while you're living it. It's just people doing stuff that's beautiful or stupid or somewhere in the middle. ~ Robin York

I have always been curious about other people. I wonder what goes on in their minds, whether they are good, or bad and I wonder about their lives. ~ Matthew Carter

If you lust for power, she will swallow you in an instant and make you her servant. ~ Volker G. Fremuth

Thus, in a real sense, I am constantly writing autobiography,
but I have to turn it into fiction in order to give it credibility. ~ Katherine Paterson

Wars produce many stories of fiction, some of which are told until they are believed to be true. ~ Ulysses S. Grant

What's important is a great set of objective ears, years of experience and a great room with a true sound. Look at this way: If the equipment in a studio is a high performance car, and the mastering engineer is the driver, putting the car on ice and trying to achieve a good lap time is like trying to master music in a bad room, all the equipment in the world wont help you connect with the music and let you hear what's really happening. The room is the environment in which the mix performs to its potential, as the road is to the car. It's hugely important. ~ Chris McCormack

The consumer is getting fed up with shoddy material, poor quality, unsafe products, bad service, weak warranties, lack of adequate information
the whole gamut of such problems. ~ Virginia Knauer

Reality is in the business of killing off fiction. ~ Will Christopher Baer

I'm not really a science-fiction fan, I quite like the idea of getting away from the science-fiction side of it, for two episodes. It was lovely, it was a super story and great fun. ~ Sarah Sutton

Yes, bad or mediocre ballets can be useful to the dancers and temporarily fun for the audience, but in the long run, the lowering of standards can only erode the art form we all love. ~ Robert Gottlieb

At thirteen, Noboru was convinced of his own genius (each of the others in the gang felt the same way) and certain that life consisted of a few simple signals and decisions; that death took root at the moment of birth and man's only recourse thereafter was to water and tend it; that propagation was a fiction; consequently, society was a fiction too: that fathers and teachers, by virtue of being fathers and teachers, were guilty of a grievous sin. Therefore, his own father's death, when he was eight, had been a happy incident, something to be proud of. ~ Yukio Mishima

Where's Lover Boy? Oh, I see. You were gonna help him, right? Well that's sweet. It's too bad you couldn't help your little ... friend. That little girl? What was her name again? Rue? Well, we killed her. And now ... we're gonna kill you. -Clove, The Hunger Games ~ Suzanne Collins

I used to blame my problems on other people. But my moment of clarity, if you want to call it that, came when I was looking in the mirror one day and just burst into tears. It wasn't just that I looked bad, it was that I knew my problem was me. ~ Tom Sizemore

Your afraid the sly little things will steal your heart if the find out you have one
- Natalie Savage Carlson " The Family Under The Bridge ~ Natalie Savage Carlson

Enemy: A friend whose mask has fallen ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

When I write fiction, I create characters whose views are not my own, and I allow them to be eloquent in defense of their, not my, views. ~ Orson Scott Card

There was nothing you couldn't do if you wanted it bad enough, and were willing to work hard enough to get it. ~ Danielle Steel

It's dangerous and dirty and smells bad and
"
"Yeah, well, so is sex and drugs and everything else worth doing. ~ Lili St. Crow

Can you actually go through life without labeling what happens to you as good or bad? Sure you can. You have to train yourself to do this. You have been conditioned to think of things as bad or good. You can de-condition yourself. It is neither easy nor fast but it is possible. ~ Srikumar Rao

He doesn't trust people because he knows they are all the same. Everyone cares about their own survival and nothing else, just like him. Since he is more than willing to kill for it, so are they. After all, he has endured through all these years, leading him to be alone, it was the only conclusion that made sense. ~ Joe Reyes

Basement smells bad. Look for cat poops, change litter. ~ Martha Stewart

I'm a professional non-fiction reader, that's what I do. But in my 20s we had our own vampire and witch moment, courtesy of Anne Rice, whose books I read and loved. ~ Deborah Harkness

My father helped me become a ballplayer and take the good with the bad. ~ Dwight Gooden

It's hard because there's a part of me that wants 'True Detective' to win every award we're nominated for. But I'm a huge fan of 'Breaking Bad' and 'Game of Thrones.' ~ Cary Fukunaga

Kraop was the sound that I heard. Heard it twice--kraop, kraop--one time each for my two fingers that got broke. I heard my bones pop before I felt anything, gunshot-loud they echoed in my ears. Maybe that was the tip-off what'd just happened was going to hurt like hell. Wrong. It hurt so bad, I didn't feel a thing. ~ John Ridley

That bad letters of every kind arise from want of the habit of thinking, I cannot doubt. ~ Mary Russell Mitford

Music has become my driving force behind my life, it to me, can fix bad moods, bad days, even bad people. It is the beat of my life. ~ Rian Dawson

I've seen a disobedient client simply turn his attention toward The Adversary and ask "Are You still there?" and suddenly all was made well between them. ~ Geoffrey Wood

You can be fearful of death. Just don't be fearful of facing it - Konjic ~ Rehan Khan

I've got my own toilet." -- Grace Harper ~ Christine Amsden

You are the lifemate of a senstive, modern male. Julian's lazy amusement warmed her further, confirming what she already suspected, that he often stayed a shadow in her mind.
How fortunate for me. Desari smiled at herself in the mirror. Her dark hair cascaded in waves down her back. There was a sparkle in her eyes. She knew Julian had made her feel more alive than she had ever been. Sensitive, modern men are so to my liking.
Men? I am certain I did not hear my lifemate use the word men.The plural.No man is allowed to be to your liking other than myself. He sounded stern, the fierce Carpathian male at his most menacing.
Desari laughed aloud. I suppose I can see your point, Julian, but really, it is so difficult to keep from noticing all of those handsome hunks in the audience.
Handsome hunks? His voice dropped low with the affront. They are more like lovesick fops. If they could feel the vibrations in the air, they would show sense and run for their lives. It is bad enough to read their fantasies and hear them talk their trash, cara,but it is altogether worse to hear that my woman is looking back. One smile at the wrong man, lifemate, and trouble will find the man quickly.
You sound jealous,she accused him, amusement curving her soft mouth.
The first rule for all women to know and never forget is that Carpathian makes do not share their lifemates. Your brother has much to answer for that this was not drilled into you since birth.It was his job ~ Christine Feehan

Even when bad things happen you have to try to use those bad things in a positive manner and really just take the positive out of it. ~ Natalie Du Toit

I won't compromise or apologize for something I didn't do. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Margaret Calhoun may not have been a holy roller, but she sure could fry the Hell out of a chicken. ~ Steven Norton

True love is full of drama. ~ Jamie Brenner