Contemporary Fiction Quotes

I waited for her to nod before pacing while I bit my lip. That hurt, so I switched to biting my finger nail. ~ K.F. Breene

Your mind is your bitch," he says. "The truth is you can teach it to do anything. You have to program your brain to your commands, not other people's. ~ Cyma Rizwaan Khan

I took one of my hands in the other, tried to imagine what it would feel like if it was another person's hand holding mine. There have been times where I felt that I might die of loneliness. ~ Gail Honeyman

The logic of limitless probability ~ Rob Kircher

Amity Gaige has written a flawless book. It does not contain a single false note. Playful and inventive, SCHRODER movingly depicts the ways we confound our own hearts
how even with the best intentions, we fail to love those closest to us as well as we wish we could. Eric Schroder should take his place among the most charismatic and memorable characters in contemporary fiction, and Amity Gaige her place among the most talented and impressive writers working today. ~ David Bezmozgis

Don't underestimate the good in you ~ Elif Shafak

When you're used to being in dangerous situations, you develop a sixth sense about your surroundings, about where possible enemies might be lurking, how many steps it will take to reach the next corner on a dead run, the best hiding places if bullets start to fly... ~ Mark Zero

If you want the extra-ordinary, you've got to be willing to forsake the ordinary' - Annie Grimes in Mr Alhourani's Dead Man's Spots ~ D.M. Lee

Quick, somebody call the caretaker!' Gemma's stage voice rang out loud and clear. 'There's some trash here that needs to be taken out.' She earned a chorus of laughs as she walked towards us, then came to a standstill right beside me. 'Christ, it reeks, too,' she said, pinching her nose. 'What did you do, Malice? Douse yourself in the whole bottle? Oh, never mind. I don't expect you to have heard of the adage "less is more". ~ Aurelia B. Rowl

A day without someone to hold you or a day without someone to share, is a day easily forgotten.' - Vera Richardson in Mr Alhourani's Dead Man's Spots ~ D.M. Lee

If music were wind, I would live in a hurricane. ~ Jessica Bell

People are complicated. And messy. Seems too convenient that we'd all fit inside some multiple-choice question. ~ Riley Cavanaugh

It's not just what Christian fiction lacks I appreciate - it's what it offers. The variety is vast: contemporary, historical, suspense, mysteries, adventure, young adult, romance, fantasy, science fiction. ~ Randy Alcorn

He watches the shadows cast by her hands as she sorts through their clothes scattered across the floor. The shape of her arms as she reaches up, slipping his black T-shirt over her head -- like victory. He considers the triumph of this moment, the slick of sweat on his chest. A small clatter, then the sound of a striking match. Her face glows. he reaches for her. She blows the match out, darts across the room, lights another one, glows, blows it out. ~ Suzanne Alyssa Andrew

I don't like to read contemporary fiction while writing - I need a sense of isolation, a kind of silence, and I don't want a jumble of other people's voices or visions getting in my way. Nineteenth-century voices don't create static in that silence. ~ Cynthia Ozick

I wanted to be ready.
I had thought I was ready.
I really believed I was ready.
That is, until the milk came. ~ Kathryn Michaels

Society gets by from the help of its citizens. ~ Brian Joyce

I guess it was only fitting that to them PUNK was a four letter word. However, to people like Dylan and I-punk was our hearts-our souls. We grew up with a lot of uncertainties. To be a teenager isn't always pretty, and our music reflected that. ~ Brian Joyce

I would say that most of my books are contemporary realistic fiction ... a couple, maybe three, fall into the 'historic fiction' category. Science fiction is not a favorite genre of mine, though I have greatly enjoyed some of the work of Ursula LeGuin. I haven't read much science fiction so I don't know other sci-fi authors. ~ Lois Lowry

Could it actually be true that tears help people to heal? ~ Banana Yoshimoto

I got gold in one hand and mud in the other ... In the end it's the same for all of us we go out the same way we came in ... alone ~ Saira Viola

In no mood for one of her silly games, I snatched it off her and scanned the page. It turned out to be a list of names, all of them boys, and some of whom I recognised. And then I noticed the title: 'Operation: Popping the Cherry'. I leaped to my feet and fired a glare at each of them in turn, trying not to shout. 'Are you shitting me? ~ Aurelia B. Rowl

Barack Obama is an elegant and literate man with a cosmopolitan sense of the world. He is widely read in philosophy, literature, and history - as befits a former law professor - and he has shown time and again a surprising interest in contemporary fiction. ~ Teju Cole

It feels like the city is telling secrets down here, privy only to those who think to listen. ~ Gayle Forman

Sometimes a beautiful woman had to do nothing more than smile to make you forget about any ugliness. ~ Bart Hopkins

You are the author of your life. So please don't let anyone including yourself make you think otherwise. If you feel like you don't like how your story goes, just write it differently. You have the tools, the courage, the power…you have it all! ~ Iva Kenaz

Maybe knowing what it is that you want, the future that you have been fighting for, is what it will take to make it happen. It's easy to admit defeat and let go of people you love, or dreams you have, because it's difficult. Fighting for them is what takes courage. Fighting for them is what matters. ~ Rowan Coleman

Taking inspiration from her own experiences as a wife, mother, principal and teacher, Ellick creates a realistic and thought-provoking modern scenario for readers to ponder, based on a well-documented historic trend. ~ Bainbridge Island Review

She had been lying there, facedown in the water long before the tide had turned at 3.04 that morning. Her eyes were staring into the river, her blonde hair first fanning out, then drawing back under her head with the wash of the water, like a pulsating jellyfish. The belt of her raincoat was caught on the branches of an overhanging tree and she'd been hooked, destined to forever flap against the corner of the broken pier with outstretched arms. She wasn't going anywhere now; she was simply bobbing up and down with the rhythm of the water - and she hadn't blinked in a long while. ~ A.J. Waines

It was his experience that life worked under the same guidelines as a capitalistic society. In order to get what you wanted, it was usually necessary to give up something in return. Sometimes gaining what you defined as everything meant losing what you most needed. ~ Roy L. Pickering Jr.

Write your dreams down, toss them into the sea, and make a wish, Isabel. Life is too short to live with regrets, own today as if it was your last. ~ A.M. Willard

Aimee Parkison offers a distinct new voice to contemporary fiction. Her seductive stories explore childhood as a realm of sorrows, and reveal the afflictions of adults who emerge from this private geography. ~ Carol Anshaw

Does bad luck come in 3's...or is it multiples of 3? ~ Tara Ford

He would always be around you, not in these words or paintings, but in your heart. He will always be in happy memories. You can't cage his worth in few pages and colors. ~ Vidushi Gupta

The British and American literary worlds operate in an odd kind of symbiosis: our critics think our contemporary novelists are not the stuff of greatness whereas certain contemporary Americans indubitably are. Their critics often advance the exact opposite: British fiction is cool, American naff. ~ Will Self

Vomit began to spill out of me like pea soup, splattering the road with champagne and caviar, long island iced teas, of bacon appetizers and croissants, and a perfectly grilled filet mignonette. It had gone down easy, among the kiss ups of the lawyer world, but spewed out nastily and hard, in the company of a cheater. ~ Keira D. Skye

I turn to contemporary fiction seeking a shared awareness with the writer of the cultural moment we both occupy, its peculiar challenges. ~ Jennifer Egan

After all, she knows how painful it can be not to follow your heart and she knows about the obstacles and about loyalty and duty and about the countless kinds of love. If only Eve and Myles were freer to make the right choices, she thinks. ~ Claire Dyer

She'd flown bareback across wide-open Texas land. She'd once shot a charging boar and never flinched. She'd put her life at risk for her country without a complaint. She was not a weakling. ~ Becky Wade

Which is probably one of the reasons those of us who love contemporary fiction love it as we do. We're alone with it. It arrives without references, without credentials we can trust. Givers of prizes (not to mention critics) do the best they can, but they may - they probably will - be scoffed at by their children's children. We, the living readers, whether or not we're members of juries, decide, all on our own, if we suspect ourselves to be in the presence of greatness. We're compelled to let future generations make the more final decisions, which will, in all likelihood, seem to them so clear as to produce a sense of bafflement over what was valued by their ancestors; what was garlanded and paraded, what carried to the temple on the shoulders of the wise. ~ Michael Cunningham

Ava glanced over at Napoleon, who was walking back toward them. She smirked at Juliet and said, "Sweetie, you are *not* the one. ~ Jay Fingers

Me having a stalker is like Donald Trump having a sense of humility. It's not a match.
~From LIBERTY & MEANS ~ Kristin Dow

When I married Mr. Right, I didn't realize his first name was ALWAYS. ~ Jill Kargman

All ideas about identity, of course, fit perfectly into the social media wonderland we live in. They seem to really connect. There's a science-fiction aspect to our contemporary life. What's virtual, what's real ... ~ Vijay Seshadri

Contemporary fiction is the hardest for me because I am not really in the popular culture - I don't watch TV. ~ Gail Carson Levine

Irrationality is part of everyday rationale ~ Elif Shafak

People vote for whom they believe will be the best president and representative for our country. The First Lady is not on the ballot. ~ Venita Ellick

I don't know what issues concerning identity have helped contemporary fiction evolve to what it is now. All I know is that the range of voices that are being heard and published is a lot more diverse than when I was coming up. ~ Jessica Hagedorn

I'm really enjoying my solitude after feeling trapped by my family, friends and boyfriend.
Just then I feel like making a resolution. A new year began six months ago but I feel like the time for change is now. No more whining about my pathetic life. I am going to change my life this very minute. Feeling as empowered as I felt when I read The Secret, I turn to reenter the hall.
I know what I'll do! Instead of listing all the things I'm going to do from this moment on, I'm going to list all the things I'm never going to do! I've always been unconventional (too unconventional if you ask my parents but I'll save that account for later). I mentally begin to make my list of nevers.
-I am never going to marry for money like Natasha just did.
-I am never going to doubt my abilities again.
-I am never going to… as I try to decide exactly what to resolve I spot an older lady wearing a bright red velvet churidar kurta. Yuck! I immediately know what my next resolution will be; I will never wear velvet. Even if it does become the most fashionable fabric ever (a highly unlikely phenomenon)

I am quite enjoying my resolution making and am deciding what to resolve next when I notice Az and Raghav holding hands and smiling at each other. In that moment I know what my biggest resolve should be.

-I will never have feelings for my best friend's boyfriend. Or for any friend's boyfriend, for that matter. That's four resolutions down. Six more to ~ Anjali Kirpalani

I uttered the wisest thing that you must say to an angry woman - "I'm sorry. ~ Mita Jain

Shortly before school started, I moved into a studio apartment on a quiet street near the bustle of the downtown in one of the most self-conscious bends of the world. The "Gold Coast" was a neighborhood that stretched five blocks along the lake in a sliver of land just south of Lincoln Park and north of River North. The streets were like fine necklaces and strung together were the brownstone houses and tall condominiums and tiny mansions like pearls, and when the day broke and the sun faded away, their lights burned like jewels shining gaudily in the night.
The world's most elegant bazaar, Michigan Avenue, jutted out from its eastern tip near The Drake Hotel and the timeless blue-green waters of Lake Michigan pressed its shores. The fractious make-up of the people that inhabited it, the flat squareness of its parks and the hint of the lake at the ends of its tree-lined streets squeezed together a domesticated cesspool of age and wealth and standing. It was a place one could readily dress up for an expensive dinner at one of the fashionable restaurants or have a drink miles high in the lounge of the looming John Hancock Building and five minutes later be out walking on the beach with pants cuffed and feet in the cool water at the lake's edge. ~ Daniel Amory

Dear Diary:
I have a confession to make: I've become a total idiot over French pastries.
They're my new favorite food.
My new-found edible souvenir.
My new favorite sin.
Dunkin Donuts is so yesterday. ~ Kimberley Montpetit

Human experience is not nest and orderly, ready to be coded into predetermined categories. Real life is messy ~ Jennifer Gold

There exists an oasis where inspiration bursts forth like black gold from the fertile loam and every odd bellbird chirps a melody worth remembering. There's no bloody map or nautical chart that can deliver you there, but you know the instant you've arrived because you never ever want to depart. ~ Adam G. Tarsitano

Justice is not blind, and she wears stilettos. ~ Camryn King

But when you talk about Nabokov and Coover, you're talking about real geniuses, the writers who weathered real shock and invented this stuff in contemporary fiction. But after the pioneers always come the crank turners, the little gray people who take the machines others have built and just turn the crank, and little pellets of metafiction come out the other end. The crank-turners capitalize for a while on sheer fashion, and they get their plaudits and grants and buy their IRAs and retire to the Hamptons well out of range of the eventual blast radius. There are some interesting parallels between postmodern crank-turners and what's happened since post-structural theory took off here in the U.S., why there's such a big backlash against post-structuralism going on now. It's the crank-turners fault. I think the crank-turners replaced the critic as the real angel of death as far as literary movements are concerned, now. You get some bona fide artists who come along and really divide by zero and weather some serious shit-storms of shock and ridicule in order to promulgate some really important ideas. Once they triumph, though, and their ideas become legitimate and accepted, the crank-turners and wannabes come running to the machine, and out pour the gray pellets and now the whole thing's become a hollow form, just another institution of fashion. Take a look at some of the critical-theory Ph.D. dissertations being written now. They're like de Man and Foucault in the mouth of a dull ~ David Foster Wallace

More seriously-and this is probably why there has been a lot of garbage talked about a lost generation-it was easy to see, all over the landscape of contemporary fiction, the devastating effect of the Thatcher years. So many of these writers wrote without hope. They had lost all ambition, all desire to to wrestle with the world. Their books dealt with tiny patches of the world, tiny pieces of human experience-a council estate, a mother, a father, a lost job. Very few writers had the courage or even the energy to bite off a big chunk of the universe and chew it over. Very few showed any linguistic or formal innovation. Many were dulled and therefore dull. (And then, even worse, there were the Hooray Henries and Sloanes who evidently thought that the day of the yuppie novel, and the Bellini-drinking, okay-yah fiction had dawned. Dukedoms and country-house bulimics abounded. It was plain that too may books were being published; that too many writers had found their way into print without any justification for it at all; that too many publishers had adopted a kind of random, scattergun policy of publishing for turnover and just hoping that something would strike a cord.
When the general picture is so disheartening, it is easy to miss the good stuff. I agreed to be a judge for "Best of Young British Novelists II" because I wanted to find out for myself if the good stuff really was there. In my view, it is...One of my old schoolmasters was fond of devising English versions of ~ Salman Rushdie

I write contemporary fiction, and that is what my readers want to read. ~ Alex Flinn

I spend my life writing fiction, so reading fiction isn't much of an escape. That's not always true, but I don't read much contemporary fiction. ~ Alan Furst

Time had taught him that whether his sins were pardoned or left unforgiven, they would remain committed. Tomorrow he would hopefully choose wiser, with a stronger measure of compassion. ~ Roy L. Pickering Jr.

Lucy: I don't feel like talking about college. It increases my stress level.
James: And increased stress levels lead to hair loss.
Lucy: My head-hair volume is fine.
James: You say that like I should be concerned about leg-hair volume. ~ Kristen Tracy

Could I be jealous of the way he was touching my horse? Yep ... I was. ~ Carly Kade

There wasn't a shed of doubt in her mind that he'd fulfill her every sexual fantasy and them some.
But was a brief, hot affair worth losing his friendship? ~ Francis Ray

Character isn't something you talk about; it's something you show through your actions-through your every day habits. ~ Brian Joyce

You know-portraits are odd things." "How do you figure?" I asked. "Well at the time, that portrait told the whole story. It told the truth. We were a family-a happy family. Now that same portrait just looks like a lie. ~ Brian Joyce

Still speaking over me,' she says, meeting my eyes and scoffing. 'You are still that worthless little girl. ~ Rebecca Berto

How'd you know that would help, Grandma?

Used to have a regular who had attacks like that all the time. Poor guy. He was an accountant, loveless marriage-most of em were back then-and vaginas scared the bejeezus outta him. ~ Jennifer LeBlanc

It is not often that I have two options to choose from. It is nice to be compelled towards something, otherwise one drifts through life unimpeded.
Bhanggi ~ Faiqa Mansab

the great advantage of really contemporary fiction is that one finds oneself mirror on every page ~ Peter Ackroyd

Talk to me. Say something, anything," he pleaded quietly as if he was trying to tame a wild animal.
"There's nothing to say."
He looked up and lowered his eyebrows on his eyes. "Why did you kiss me? ~ Stephanie Witter

In high school I was drawn to the study of literature, poetry Shakespeare, contemporary fiction, drama, you name it - I read it. ~ Frederick Lenz

The writing you allude to is a form of dissent, but it's also expressive of the need to evolve beyond what is turgid and stale in contemporary fiction. ~ Rachel Cusk

I'm going to turn my life around. Make a complete three sixty."
"Don't you mean one eighty?" he corrected. "If you do that, you'll end up right back where you started."
"Maybe. But at least I'll have a chance of coming out of it a different person - a better version of me. ~ Megan Duke

Congratulations," she said. "You win. ~ Megan Duke

Not because of you. You were perfect. Are perfect. You're considerate, moral, brave. But you reminded me…"He couldn't finish.
I swallowed through a dry throat. "Of her."
"No." He blinked. "Of me. Who I used to be. Somebody who would stick up for his friends, even if it was risky. Somebody who put other people first. Somebody who…" He let out a helpless laugh. "Somebody who screwed up a lot. ~ Jenn Marie Thorne

I congratulate you on your success stealing the painting. ~ Mark Zero

She might have been there for you in the aftermath, but I was there when everything came crashing down. ~ Megan Duke

... she was a pudding of immaturity and precocious wisdom that had not yet set into a stable mold. ~ Mark Zero

Well, I'll tell yer now, it's going t' be even better for talkin' t' me! Get your arse down tut station. I'd gor meself, but I'm sending you as a proxy. Sort it out at Oxford Street for me, will yer, eh?They're not doin' the bloody figures, an' I for one want to know what the eck's goin' on! You'll be writin' me a full report. And if they're pissing about, sack 'em, right? Get your arse on the next bloody train, eh! I want you there as soon as possible. Get yourself checked in tut hotel when you get there. You can phone that man, Bart is it, whatsisname, and let 'im knor, eh?.....What d'yer say? You'll do it for me? Grand! Get your arse down that station, now! The phone clicked off ~ Suzy Davies

Thank God there are places
with sounds that make me cry
from beauty,
not from pain. ~ Stasia Ward Kehoe

Was love ever easy for anyone? If less complicated, would this make it less appreciated? Perhaps love was difficult for good reason. Perhaps everything on God's green earth was the result of a flawless plan, even that which seemed most muddled. ~ Roy L. Pickering Jr.

The moment-when I could no longer face myself in the mirror-wasn't easily explained; nor was the oppressive misery I experienced once I finally became the person I was meant to be but then realized with terrific horror how much I still hated her. ~ Jodi LaPalm

His heart cracked open and flooded all the space around it. ~ Jean Thompson

If a woman chooses to support her husband and become First Lady, I believe she must do so with the understanding that the public expects the full-meal deal. ~ Venita Ellick

Dream-start with dream. Start tonight-become who you want-dream big!" He became animated at this point, "No money needed for dreams. Dreams are free. ~ Brian Joyce

It's not the bloody carrots that upset me. It's having them sneaked into my food by a madwoman who addresses the cutlery as Mr and Mrs Fork. ~ Jojo Moyes

Ultimately, I want a peak experience in reading, and that is sometimes difficult to find in contemporary fiction. I'm not interested in books that are just clever and well executed; polish doesn't impress me, and I don't care about a merely capable sentence. Life is short; I want a confrontation with high art. I want soul. Great literature rattles the mind and makes the body sing. It's an unmistakable, electric feeling, and too rare. That is what I want. ~ C.E. Morgan

I think the anti-intellectualism of a lot of contemporary fiction is a kind of despairing of literature's ability to be anything more than perfectly bound blog posts or transcribed sitcoms. ~ Ben Lerner

Not a lot of contemporary fiction is written about brothers and sisters. Salinger's Franny and Zooey was an inspiration for me. In Franny and Zooey, the sister gets in trouble and the brother comes to help her out. But I wanted to make sure that in my novel the sister had more to do than lie around on a sofa muttering, which is what Franny does for two-thirds of Salinger's novel. ~ K.M. Soehnlein

How can you be kissing at a time like this? Have you no respect for the dead? ~ Mark Zero

And I had just kissed my ex-girlfriend, who had cried, while my current girlfriend was in jail. So far, it had not been my best day. ~ Mark Zero

[T]he incomparable Diana Wynne Jones, one of the finest mythic fiction writers of our age, who left us too early (due to cancer) two days ago. I'm so grateful to her for the extraordinary books she has left behind, which have inspired a whole generation of younger writers. She was writing brilliant YA fantasy before the genre (as we know it now) even existed; she was writing enchanting "wizard school" books long before Harry Potter was a gleam in Rowling's eye; and her knowledge of how to weave mythic/folkloric themes into contemporary fiction was second to no one's. Diana will be terribly missed, but through her magical stories, her light will stay on. ~ Terri Windling

I love you. I trust you and... I want to be your human canvas! ~ Angela Gascoigne

One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless.
The tale is the map that is the territory.
You must remember this. ~ Neil Gaiman

...but Marcel in the novel does not merely remember what happened to him when he was younger and lived the life of a dilettante, in most cases he invents, he speculates, imagines makes up stories about himself and the other characters in the novel. Yes, Marcel constantly invents, right before our eyes, what he thinks happened, or might have happened, or ought to have happened, especially since, in many instances, he was not present himself to witness what happened, or if he was present he was unable to hear or see what was happening. That is, in fact, the key to this novel: that Marcel does not simply remember what he tells us, but that he speculates on the basis of what he thinks he remembers. Therefore, it is not memory but imagination that engenders the novel. A la recherche du temps perdu is not simply a work of fiction that looks backward to retrieve the past, it is above all a novel that looks forward towards its own future, towards its own making, as it reflects on its creative process. And that is also true of much contemporary fiction, or what has been called New Fiction, Metafiction, Anti-fiction, Postmodern Fiction, or Surfiction. ~ Raymond Federman

On occasion we stumble upon what seems to be a truth. Compared to the surrounding blackness, it sparkles and dazzles our eyes. But are these actually truths? Are our eyes really feasting upon light? Or just patches of grey? ~ Roy L. Pickering Jr.

This was real life, not a book. And in
real life, people met, nothing happened, and you went
home. ~ Danielle Steel

I started reading contemporary fiction in college or right after college. It wasn't as if I was steeped in experimental minimalism when I was twelve or something. I was reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond. ~ Leni Zumas

Livy hadn't anticipated meeting anyone and wasn't ready to explain why the last few years
of her life had worn her so much, leaving her searching for home. Surely, Jack didn't care to hear a sob story from a perfect stranger. Actually, Livy wasn't sure she believed that. Something whispered inside her soul that Jack was just the person she needed to tell. ~ Teresa Tysinger

The gossip will kill your Great Grandmother. ~ Linda Joyce