Biographical Fiction Quotes

There is something so absurd about time and how it has simultaneously preserved and demolished our faces. ~ Noelle Oxenhandler

He pressed bravely ahead with his story, the outlines and preliminary versions of which by now filled two thick notebooks, reorganizing, redrafting, and obsessively re-polishing lines and paragraphs with a jeweler's precision.
But it was not good enough.
He wanted the pages to sing with ideas that had once seemed so important to him, all and everything he knew, and yet they did not, and no amount of diligence was able to bring them to life. The story came to be a burden and weighed more heavily in his hands each time he lifted it out of the drawer. After a few weeks he was reluctant to open the desk at all.
("Talking In The Dark") ~ Dennis Etchison

No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing ~ Charlotte Bronte

He came back to her lips and tasted them briefly before settling his forehead against hers. "I don't care what Grayson or his legal document says," he muttered between catches of wind. "God's given you to me, and as soon as He allows, I'll claim you as my own."
He spoke with such confidence that if she allowed herself, she could almost believe him. But with belief came hope, and with hope, the inevitability of pain.
The knocking at the door resumed, more urgently this time.
Along her throat, splotches of cool marked where he'd sampled her. Milly lamented that it was already warming. In heartbeats, all she would have was memories. And anguish. Could God truly fill the hollow Phillip would leave? Last night, His promise had filled her to the depths of her soul. It was enough. It would have to be.
With his eyes locked on hers, Phillip's hand trailed her cheek and throat. It brushed over her shoulder and down her arm. Then, in one blink, he wiped every emotion from his face, stunning her with the callous glaze of his eyes.
He gripped her by the elbow, whisked her through the kitchen, and opened the door to her wretched future. ~ April W. Gardner

We all have scars. Just because mine are hidden doesn't make them any less painful. ~ Nicki Salcedo

Only fiction has the power to cross the mental barricades, to make strangers intelligible to each other, because it moves people's hearts as well as engaging their minds. ~ Ian Leslie

...I've been ripped off, lied to, slandered, gossiped about slapped, falsely accused, and had my truths not believed. I've had my heart broken, had my pride stomped on, witnessed unforgivable acts, and heard words that hurt so much I withed that they would not replay in my head, but they did. In all these moments--some tear-soaked, some life-defining, but all character-building moments--I have felt vulnerable.
And I believe these feelings of vulnerability--when a person feels scared and alone and overwhelmed and pissed off, wen the sting of unfairness bites deep--while miserable to live through, are the basis for writing compelling fiction. ~ Jessica Page Morrell

While it can be pleasurable to move speedily through a work of fiction, there's a different sort of pleasure to be had in lingering, backtracking, rereading the same page. ~ Joanna Scott

In science fiction, we're always searching for new frontiers. We're drawn to the unknown. ~ Ridley Scott

An invisible blade of fire drew across the flesh of his shoulders and down his back. He had no idea what the mark was, but he felt the spread of magic forever etched into his skin. ~ Sheila English

I find it's bizarre that science fiction is the one branch of television to push the idea of strong female characters. And I only call it bizarre because strong women aren't fiction. ~ Steven Moffat

Borges's world is as grounded in the changing nature of existence, that common predicament of the human species, as any literary world that has lasted. How could it be otherwise? No work of fiction that turns its back on life or that is incapable of illuminating life has ever attained durability. What is singular about Borges is that in his world the existential, the historical, sex, psychology, feelings, instincts, and so forth, have been dissolved and reduced to an exclusively intellectual dimension; and life, that boiling, chaotic turmoil, reaches the reader sublimated and conceptualized, transformed into literary myth through the filter of Borges, a filter of such perfect logic that it sometimes appears not to distill life to its essence but to suppress it altogether. ~ Mario Vargas-Llosa

Fiction is the truth in the lie. ~ Stephen King

Now the second common characteristic of fiction follows from this, and it is that fiction is presented in such a way that the reader has the sense that it is unfolding around him. This doesn't mean he has to identify himself with the character or feel compassion for the character or anything like that. It just means that fiction has to be largely presented rather than reported. Another way to say it is that though fiction is a narrative art, it relies heavily on the element of drama. ~ Flannery O'Connor

You look within and upon and around me, savoring every inch. You pull my ear for no reason, and I can tell you really don't want to cry. As a tear falls between by breasts, I look away and pretend the grass is a jungle, and the ants, little kings of forgotten tribes. ~ Virginia Petrucci

Be the best you can be for yourself! ~ Susan Marie Murdoch

Love Fiction for Fiction Lovers ~ Selene Grace Silver

Reflecting on these complex relationships between reader and story, fiction and life, can constitute a form of therapy against the sleep of reason, which generates monsters. ~ Umberto Eco

«"I meant, tell me all about this steampunk thing!" Gavin broke in. "How does that concept work out for you people, here in Brazil?"
"You don't know about steampunk?" shouted Xavier, dubiously.
"Well, I don't read many novels! Because I'm kinda fully-booked already! But, obviously, you're a science fiction writer at a Futurist conference! And I can see that you're all dressed up like some fancy guy from the past, from the 19th century! So what gives with that? What is all that about?"» ~ Bruce Sterling

Fiction supplies the only philosophy that may readers know; it establishes their ethical, social, and material standards; it confirms them in their prejudices or opens their minds to a wider world. ~ Dorothea Brande

What is Gornite? Why can't you heat it? Will it make you laugh? - I hope so ~ Lucas Riddle

It's a terrible thing to limp along the sides of a life you once ran through. ~ R.L. Martinez

Isn't there a flaw in the logic of that phrase - speak truth to power? It assumes that power doesn't know the truth. But power knows the truth just as well, if not better, than the powerless know the truth. Enron knows what it's doing. We don't have to tell it what it's doing. We have to tell other people what Enron is doing. Similarly, the people who are building the dams know what they're doing. The contractors know how much they're stealing. The bureaucrats know how much they're getting in bribes.
Power knows the truth. There isn't any doubt about that. It is really about telling the story. Good fiction is the truest thing that ever there was. Facts are not necessarily the only truths. Facts can be fiddled with by economists and bankers. There are other kinds of truth. It's about telling the story. As a writer, that's the best thing I can do. It's not just about digging up facts. ~ Arundhati Roy

For the courage to write above myself;
For the guts to shout down the Critic within;
Fir the willingness to release the past, the future,
I thank You, that which Inspires. ~ Catherine W. Scott

Once it gets off the ground into space, all science fiction is fantasy. ~ J.G. Ballard

Kay could see how Michael stood to receive their homage. He reminded her of statues in Rome, statues of those Roman emperors of antiquity, who, by divine right, held the power of life and death over their fellow men. One hand was on his hip, the profile of his face showed a cold proud power, his body was carelessly, arrogantly at ease, weight resting on one foot slightly behind the other. The caporegimes stood before him. In that moment Kay knew that everything Connie had accused Michael of was true. She went back into the kitchen and wept. ~ Mario Puzo

Humans were still not only the cheapest robots around, but also, for many tasks, the only robots that could do the job. They were self-reproducing robots too. They showed up and worked generation after generation; give them 3000 calories a day and a few amenities, a little time off, and a strong jolt of fear, and you could work them at almost anything. Give them some ameliorative drugs and you had a working class, reified and coglike. ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

There has to be beauty left in the world, Julia," said Kiyu. "Otherwise we have nothing. ~ Erica Lindquist

My approach to 'Star Trek' was, 'I know science fiction, and I know screen writing.' That was very arrogant of me, but you really need to be a little bit arrogant to think that what you have to say is good enough to justify the expense of hundreds of thousands - now millions of dollars - to make an episode of the TV show. ~ David Gerrold

I think fiction is all about the exercise of the empathetic imagination. Part of what I do is let the stuff I read about meld with what I have experienced. ~ Jim Shepard

I have never been a fan of science fiction. For me, fiction has to explore the combinatorial possibilities of people interacting under the constraints imposed by our biology and history. When an author is free to suspend the constraints, it's tennis without a net. ~ Steven Pinker

I think any reading is good reading, even if it's commercial fiction. A good story well told is worth the time ~ Lynn Cahoon

Step up to red alert."
Sir, are you absolutely sure? It does mean changing the bulb."
- Rimmer & Kryten, "Red Dwarf ~ Rob Grant

The daughter of the literary biographer Leslie Stephen, and close friend of the innovative biographer of the Victorians, Lytton Strachey, Woolf herself put forward, in 'The New Biography' (1927) (reviewing work by another biographer acquaintance, Harold Nicolson), her own memorable theory of biography, encapsulated in her phrase 'granite and rainbow'. 'Truth' she envisions 'as something of granite-like solidity', and 'personality as
something of rainbow-like intangibility', and 'the aim of biography', she proposes, 'is to weld these two into one seamless whole' (E4 473). The following short biographical account ofWoolf will attempt to keep to the basic granitelike facts that Woolf novices need to know, while also occasionally attending in brief to the more elusive, but equally relevant, matter of rainbow-like personality. ~ Jane Goldman

I would ask, 'Have you read '1984'? Have you read 'Brave New World'? If so, I'm sorry, but you read science fiction.' ~ Carrie Vaughn

In the field of fantastic fiction, the question of world-building is not uncontroversial. But I grew up with 'Dungeons and Dragons,' so that whole world-building thing is very close to my heart. ~ China Mieville