Classic Fiction Quotes

If it ran, a Bean would shoot it. If it fell, a Bean would eat it. ~ Carolyn Chute

Classics aren't books that are read for pleasure. Classics are books that are imposed on unwilling students, books that are subjected to analyses of "levels of significance" and other blatt, books that are dead. ~ Alexei Panshin

The soul, you see, is a shy and retiring thing. It lurks in dark places and dislikes sunlight. And so, if you do not keep the skylight open at all times, the soul will rot. It easily decays, like a fresh sea urchin. ~ Yukio Mishima

If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. ~ J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Passion-means to live for life's sake but I am well aware you Germans live for the sake of experience. Passion means to forget ones self. But you do things in order to enrich yourselves. ~ Thomas Mann

I never really had any intention of getting involved in documentaries until the opportunity came around. I always thought much more in classic fiction cinema terms and I think I tried to apply those ideas to documentaries and not vice versa. ~ John Hyams

I let him run on, this papier-maché Mephistopheles, and it seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my forefinger through him, and would find nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe. ~ Joseph Conrad

My ears become my conduit to the world. In the darkness I listen - to thrillers, to detective novels, to romances; to family sagas, potboilers and historical novels; to ghost stories and classic fiction and chick lit; to bonkbusters and history books. I listen to good books and bad books, great books and terrible books; I do not discriminate. Steadily, hour after hour, in the darkness I consume them all. ~ Anna Lyndsey

Ah yes, now you're beginning to feel it. It's so satisfying to see my best efforts coming to fruition. Undoubtedly one of the most gratifying rewards of my profession. It would warm my heart - if I had one. ~ Jaye Frances

In French culture, the best way of buying time or getting off the hook entirely in a thorny personal situation is to claim that it's complicated. The French did not invent love, but they did invent romance, so they've had more time than any other culture on earth to refine the nuances of its language. ~ Mark Zero

Soon I find myself squatting on the floor. I am still striking my face; not with my fists this time, but with wide-open hands. I am slapping myself. The sounds I make when my palms meet my cheeks are like an unrelenting round of applause. I am clapping myself. Or clapping for myself. I start to giggle.

All the voices are receding now. I am no longer filled with rage or disappointment. I clap and clap and simply cannot stop. ~ Cyril Wong

There is a sort of genre of optimistic science fiction that I like, and I don't think there is enough of. One of my favourites is a short story by Arthur C. Clarke, 'The City and the Stars.' It's set in this far future on Earth in this somewhat static society and trying to break out. ~ Peter Thiel

I spent most of my teen years trying to figure out the rules of life, theories for why things happened, why people behaved as they did, and mostly I came to the conclusion that either there were no rules, or the rules sucked. Reading science fiction wasn't about imagining myself into some more exciting life filled with adventure, it was about finding a world where things worked the way I wanted them to. ~ Robin Wasserman

What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world-and defines himself afterward. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

An athletic man, or whatever you want to call him, will only look good in a very classic suit, a pair of classic jeans, athletic clothes or simply naked. Forget fashion. This is not going to happen, unless you want to look like a Chippendales dancer in designer clothes. ~ Hedi Slimane

The homily that day was on asking God for
guidance and wisdom when making decisions.
What if she prayed about her questions? Could
she still trust God if his answers were different
from what she wanted? ~ Dawn Klinge

He had been inspired to start a career in the porn industry after reading the incredible tale of a Japanese man who avenged the death of his sister by going down on her best friend for seven days and seven nights. ~ Mark Jackman

I'll always love you, no matter what happens, okay? ~ Simone Elkeles

If you can plan ahead into the future, you will also be able to detach yourself from minor difficulties today. ~ Chris Erzfeld

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: 'Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.'
That depends, Sir,' said Disraeli, 'whether I embrace your policies or your mistress. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

I was inspired by the classic rock radio of the Seventies. They separated Chuck Berry and the Beatles from the Led Zeppelins and Bostons and Peter Framptons of the time. In many ways, classic rock became bigger than mainstream rock. ~ Chuck D

My theory is that the purpose of art is to transmit universal truths of a sort, but of a particular sort, that in art, whether it's poetry, fiction or painting, you are telling the reader or listener or viewer something he already knows but which he doesn't quite know that he knows, so that in the action of communication he experiences a recognition, a feeling that he has been there before, a shock of recognition. And so, what the artist does, or tries to do, is simply to validate the human experience and to tell people the deep human truths which they already unconsciously know. ~ Walker Percy

Havens turned again.
Someone else passed between the trucks.
That someone walked with less purpose than the other workers near the stalls. To Havens this meant a surveillance asset was on him and it probably was not an assassination attempt. It eased him back into relative comfort for just a moment or two more. ~ J.T. Patten

It used to be that the longest unprotected border in the world was that between the United States and Canada. Today it's the one between fact and fiction. If the two cozy up any closer together The National Enquirer will be out of business. ~ Stacy Schiff

You need to understand that truth is stranger than fiction. Listen: people are willing to swallow any old tripe as long as you say it without flinching. They want to be told stuff. And they don't want to doubt you either. It's too hard. ~ Craig Silvey

You're the one who put me in distress! ~ Trevor Alan Foris

Something emerged from the air and slumped on the concrete floor behind Mosquera. The men near the table recoiled in horror. One gasped and stepped backwards, falling over a chair with a crash. Two others crossed themselves. Lock moved the fly so he could see past Mosquera. His blood ran cold. The lumpy mass on the floor looked as though the Devil himself had grabbed Miguel, squashed and scrambled his skin, muscles and bones, and dropped the mess back on the concrete. Like everybody else in the room, Lock was in shock. People didn't die in teleportation, but the evidence was in front of him. What on earth had Mosquera used? ~ J.M. Johnson

There is no man but carries in his breast the makings of a story, which, though never told, comes more home to him, than any the mind of another man can find and fashion in words

("The Watcher O' The Dead") ~ John Guinan

I flipped the good doctor the bird.
Snorting, Gideon caught my hand and pulled me back down the hall.
"What is it with you and giving people the finger?"
"What? It's a classic. ~ Sylvia Day

I think there's nothing more wonderful than using fiction to reflect real-world cultural ideas. ~ Jesse Eisenberg

Inside the room there sat a rocker, which she sat on, and which had rocked her while she sipped the beer, because in spite of herself she had become so giddy to have so quickly relieved her heart that she allowed herself to lean backwards while in the rocker, which had made it possible for the rocker to rock her, although it was not her intention to be so rocked. Also there stood an ironing board with a still hot iron on it that was burning a yellow shift, and there was, among several items that were not as noticeable to the woman, and yet were noticeable enough to at least bear mention, a fake man.
"I hope you don't mind me asking," said the woman who lived in the room, but then while in her chair she nodded off. ~ Justin Dobbs

There are trappings of science fiction which I kind of embrace, but there are also cliches which I run from. ~ David Twohy

How astonishingly intimate the business of fiction is, more intimate than anything that issues from the psychiatrist's couch or even the lovers' bed. You see the soul, pinned and wriggling on the wall. ~ Martin Amis

I think it is the art of the glimpse. If the novel is like an intricate Renaissance painting, the short story is an impressionist painting. It should be an explosion of truth. Its strength lies in what it leaves out just as much as what it puts in, if not more. It is concerned with the total exclusion of meaninglessness. Life, on the other hand, is meaningless most of the time. The novel imitates life, where the short story is bony, and cannot wander. It is essential art. ~ William Trevor

Two there shall be; no more, no less. One to embody the dark side, the other to crave it. ~ Drew Karpyshyn

It was only when the giant got halfway down the incline that he suddenly, happily, burst into flame and continued his trip saying, "NO SURVIVORS, NO SURVIVORS!" in a manner that could only indicate deadly sincerity.
It was seeing him happily burning and advancing that startled the Brute Squad to screaming. And once that happened, why, everybody panicked and ran ... ~ William Goldman

I am the only one who can create the missing piece of the wing. I have created it, and now - I am whole. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

The thing that fiction can do is look from the inside out rather than from the outside in. Even memoir leaves me somewhat frustrated. I think now we need a poet to uncover what isn't on the surface. ~ Alice McDermott

Among the people to whom he belonged, nothing was written or talked about at that time except the Serbian war. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time, it now did for the benefit of the Slavs: balls, concerts, dinners, speeches, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurants - all bore witness to our sympathy with the Slavs.

With much that was spoken and written on the subject Konyshev did not agree in detail. He saw that the Slav question had become one of those fashionable diversions which, ever succeeding one another, serve to occupy Society; he saw that too many people took up the question from interested motives. He admitted that the papers published much that was unnecessary and exaggerated with the sole aim of drawing attention to themselves, each outcrying the other. He saw that amid this general elation in Society those who were unsuccessful or discontented leapt to the front and shouted louder than anyone else: Commanders-in-Chief without armies, Ministers without portfolios, journalists without papers, and party leaders without followers. He saw that there was much that was frivolous and ridiculous; but he also saw and admitted the unquestionable and ever-growing enthusiasm which was uniting all classes of society, and with which one could not help sympathizing. The massacre of our coreligionists and brother Slavs evoked sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against their oppressors. And the heroism of the Serbs and Montenegrins, fighting for a ~ Leo Tolstoy

If reality is as equally valuable as fiction, then you should just chalk up the parts of the past you don't need to your imagination ~ Ryohgo Narita

Shut the front door!" Jenna exclaimed.
Andrew disappeared into the foyer, and when he returned, his eyebrows were furrowed in confusion. "The door is shut? ~ Laura Kreitzer

Wrote a science fiction novel about a man who wins an argument with his wife, but it was rejected for being too farfetched. ~ Dana Gould

Fiction is a careful combination of observation, inspiration, and imagination. ~ Luke Taylor

Modern fiction brings out the evil in domestic lives, ordinary relations, people like you and me -- Reader! Bruder! as Humbert said. Evil in Austen, as in most great fiction, lies in the inability to "see" others, hence to empathize with them. What is frightening is that this blindness can exist in the best of us (Eliza Bennet) as well as the worst (Humbert). We are all capable of becoming the blind censor, or imposing our visions and desires on others. ~ Azar Nafisi

You know how sometimes you remember a place you once loved, a movie you've enjoyed, only to be disappointed when you return to that place or see that movie for a second time? Well, it wasn't disappointing. She sounds exactly as I remember her - and there is still something so warm and caring about her that it is difficult to hate her for how she abandoned us. ~ Christina Westover

Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of decent mutual regard, unless each of us resolves to breathe such qualities into it. ~ Frank Herbert

The Classic games were Classic because, like classical music or architecture, they strove to give life and weight to ideals of order and proportion, to provide a vision of timelessness. In 'Double Dragon,' we can see the cracks in the brick, the mold growing on the drainage pipes, the unmistakable deterioration of the world we live in. ~ D. B. Weiss

That is why fiction existed, as a way to look at the world without being broken by it. ~ Olen Steinhauer

He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a featherhat, walking on his hind legs. ~ Joseph Conrad

Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived. ~ Agatha Christie

Fiction is an ancient virtual reality technology that specializes in simulating human problems. ~ Jonathan Gottschall