Debut Fiction Quotes

Brian organised for the body to be flown back. ~ Jolene Tan

What is it about an unsolved mystery...that captures us so. that makes us lean forward. looking for an answer? Is it just the challenge of cracking it ourselves or do we rather hope that it will never be solved? Because in solving something, in pinning it down,in reducing it to one reality, something of the magic is lost. Don't we all hope, even the fiercest realists among us, that there is another answer that transcends our understanding? A heaven above us, after all. ~ Kate Weinberg

English. That was where I met him. ~ Andrew Koh

I mostly believe, deep in my bones, that life is very simply beyond description; regardless of what one makes of it, life always spills over the parameters of how anyone has chosen to define it. ~ Cyril Wong

The pleasures of writing correspond exactly to the pleasures of reading ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Every damn one of us has faults. I feel like I was dealt an especially crummy hand."

"It got ugly. I became a man possessed by inner demons that could not be caged. I was desperate for answers that were never forthcoming. Jen avoided me like the plague. She was ever fearful of the questions that I refused to voice. All of my answers poured forth deliciously from the bottle. ~ Virginia Aird

My attention was like cooking butter, not spreadable at the best of times. And when it was spreadable, it could destroy your toast by setting it ablaze. I was unpredictable, even to myself. ~ Shoeburn Ruffet

No doubt, there are those who believe that judges-and particularly dissenting judges-write to hear themselves say, as it were, I I I. And no doubt, there are also those who believe that judges are, like Joan Didion, primarily engaged in the writing of fiction. I cannot agree with either of those propositions. ~ William J. Brennan

And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshipers of the sun's passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don't keep the schedule tight. ~ Harlan Ellison

Fiction is a sort of inter-human magic, allowing you to travel into a scene and feel it tingle on your skin, see it in your mind's eye and smell it with your mind's nose! But forming these images from the printed page is a skill you have to develop when you're fairly young, I think, or else it's very difficult to read for pleasure later on. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

I'm the story of Sheresa. I write a little bit of the fiction of me every day. ~ Samantha Hunt

There's no need for fiction when we have everyday life. ~ Latasha Wakefield

Know this. If you're here to hurt my ship, or my crew, I will make sure you truly do know suffering."
Cale from Demon Possession ~ Kiersten Fay

Fictional people are people, too, otherwise why would we care what happens to them? ~ Nora Roberts

I wrapped my arms around my body, pushing away my doubts and indecision for just a moment, and looked out toward the cemetery. "Whatever it takes," I vowed. And as I said the words, I felt a chill run across my neck and a ghostly touch slide down my cheek ~ Catrina Burgess

I asked her what a true story was because I thought that all stories were made up. She said a true story was called fact, and a made-up story was called ficton. Auntie May said a made-up story is a bit like telling lies, only the people who read them knew that already and so it didn't matter ~ Rebecca Lloyd

I believe the Lord has chosen me to spread His word through my words and who am I to question His plans for me? ~ Cindy Bauer

Sharon, you have bewitched me, body and soul. I don't wish to be parted from you, from this day forward. ~ Lynda Colucci

When you will you learn that we all have our place, our parts to play?"
I scoffed, wincing as the slices on my back pulled. "When will you learn that it's up to you if you play those parts or not? ~ Shelly Crane

The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means. ~ Richard Dawkins

He may be stronger, but I'm not defenseless. He knows that, of coarse. That's why he's here. He wants me for what I can do after all. ~ Sophie Jordan

When life seems comparable to a broken tea cup, you must realize there is nothing more than a single chip in the porcelain. ~ Erin Forbes

Jules lips quivered, and I feared she was about to cry. Then she asked, "He bit off more than he could chew, didn't he?" She made a motion as if she was biting into a tough piece of steak.
Gabriella's lips sealed shut as she tried to hide her grin, though she failed at it when Andrew asked, "Was he eating?" He turned desperately to Gabriella, confused.
Jules wasn't about to cry, she was trying not to laugh! She giggled then, the sound tinkling and odd in the outlandish setting.
Andrew straightened and shook his head at Gabriella. "Did you see him eat? ~ Laura Kreitzer

In the lonely dark she goes again and again to that locked cupboard knowing that she holds the key, and frightened of the self she might find inside. ~ Frederick Anderson

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

A teleporting cat! Is she yours?" Dr. Daniel McCleod. "Suki ~ Ellen Dawn Benefield

Dogwood Blues by Brenda Sutton Rose is a masterful work of classic small-town fiction. ~ Janice Daugharty

Children, I mean, think of your own childhood, how important the bedtime story was. How important these imaginary experiences were for you. They helped shape reality, and I think human beings wouldn't be human without narrative fiction. ~ Paul Auster

The Americans want a surplus stocked up to supply their every whim. And their appeals are much less requests, more demands. Indeed, the phrase might be more aptly put: Demand and Surplus. ~ Geoffrey Wood

Remember, any lie you are told, even deliberately, is often a more significant fact than a truth told in all sincerity. ~ Halldor Laxness

There were about thirty of them, I think - all women; all seated at tables, bearing drinks and books and papers. You might have passed any one of them upon the street, and thought nothing; but the effect of their appearance all combined was rather queer. They were dressed, not strangely, but somehow distinctly. They wore skirts - but the kind of skirts a tailor might design if he were set, for a dare, to sew a bustle for a gent. Many seemed clad in walking-suits or riding-habits. Many wore pince-nez, or carried monocles on ribbons. There were one or two rather startling coiffures; and there were more neckties than I had ever seen brought together at any exclusively female ensemble. ~ Sarah Waters

The movement for women's liberation was about an emotional transformation, an explosion, a feeling all over the country that things must be different, and ideas about how they should be. I think fiction can capture that kind of thing better than other genres because in fiction you can explore the feelings of your characters - the before and the after. ~ Alix Kates Shulman

Jewish history is never simply about the Jews, but always about their relationship with the rest of society. ~ Abigail Green

A fearless mind is fearless because, it cannot see anything different from it. Fear of superiority and power comes only when we begin to differentiate. ~ Rajasaraswathii

I didn't lie, I was writing fiction with my mouth.
Homer Simpson ~ Matt Groening

If somebody loves you, you accept it because you love yourself. You are happy with yourself; somebody else is happy - good! It does not get in your head, it does not make you madly egoistic. You simply enjoy yourself; somebody else also finds you enjoyable - good! While it lasts, live the fiction as beautifully as possible - it will not last forever. That, ~ Osho

In the end, the discipline of verification is what separates journalism from entertainment, propaganda, fiction, or art. ~ Bill Kovach

Dedicated to helping you create strong, vibrant, and beautiful fiction ~ David Farland

The novel doesn't come into existence until certain methods of reproducing fiction come along. ~ Leslie Fiedler

A brief life burns brightly. ~ Stephen Baxter

What does travel ultimately produce if it is not, by a sort of reversal, 'an exploration of the deserted places of my memory,' the return to nearby exoticism by way of a detour through distant places, and the 'discovery' of relics and legends: 'fleeting visions of the French countryside,' 'fragments of music and poetry,' in short, something like an 'uprooting in one's origins (Heidegger)? What this walking exile produces is precisely the body of legends that is currently lacking in one's own vicinity; it is a fiction, which moreover has the double characteristic like dreams or pedestrian rhetoric, or being the effect of displacements and condensations. As a corollary, one can measure the importance of these signifying practices (to tell oneself legends) as practices that invent spaces. ~ Michel De Certeau

I've known her long enough to know that this was purely intentional." He peered sideways at me, judging my reaction. "I like her just fine, but you should watch yourself around her. Tennyson is given to obsession, and her obsessions tend to run toward trouble. It's kind of a Wyoming thing to push the whole 'Wild West' routine to its limits. ~ Laura Anderson Kurk

Unfortunately, to try to disconnect faith from vision is to do violence to the whole personality, and the whole personality participates in the act of writing. The tensions of being a Catholic novelist are probably never balanced for the writer until the Church becomes so much a part of his personality that he can forget about her - in the same sense that when he writes, he forgets about himself. ~ Flannery O'Connor

The thing about science-fiction fans and "Star Wars" fans is they're very independent-thinking people. They all think outside the box, but they all have very strong ideas about what should happen, and they think it should be their way. Which is fine, except I'm making the movies, so I should have it my way. ~ George Lucas

But I hate things all fiction ... there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric - and pure invention is but the talent of a liar. ~ Lord Byron

It is a work of psychogeography, albeit in a less explicit sense than Iain Sinclair's or Will Self's. It had to be fiction though, because I needed that freedom of including whatever belonged, and cutting out whatever didn't. The main fiction in it was matching Julius' generous and self-concealing character to New York's generous and self-concealing character. I think this also adds to my answer about New York's personality in the book. ~ Teju Cole

Renée and I met at a bar called the Eastern Standard in Charlottesville, Virginia. I had just moved there to study English in grad school. Renée was a fiction writer in the MFA program. I was sitting with my poet friend Chris in a table in the back, when I fell under the spell of Renée's bourbon-baked voice. The bartender put on Big Star's Radio City. Renée was the only other person in the room who perked up. We started talking about how much we loved Big Star. It turned out we had the same favorite Big Star song – the acoustic ballad Thirteen. She'd never heard their third album, Sister Lovers. So naturally, I told her the same thing I'd told every other woman I'd ever fallen for: "I'll make you a tape! ~ Rob Sheffield