Favorite Fiction Quotes

I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. I am Jack's Broken Heart. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

service, which would relay messages to his mother. Ron Wayne drew a logo, using the ornate line-drawing style of Victorian illustrated fiction, that featured Newton sitting under a tree framed by a quote from Wordsworth: "A mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone." It was a rather odd motto, one that fit Wayne's self-image more than Apple Computer. Perhaps ~ Walter Isaacson

Why write a song when no one can play the notes or understand the lyrics? ~ Christopher Moore

An author of fiction is a god of the world he creates. But it must be a world others want to inhabit. ~ Raul Ramos Y Sanchez

If often happens too, both in courts and in cabinets, that there are two things going on together,
a main plot and an under-plot; and he that understands only one of them will, in all probability, be the dupe of both. A mistress may rule a monarch, but some obscure favorite may rule the mistress. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Teen fiction should be about teenagers - no matter how many arguments there are about what YA lit should be, this seems like the one thing we can all agree on. ~ Robin Wasserman

I started out a human being. But pretty much had all the humanity wrung out of me after passing the Bar and practicing law for ten years. Not sure what I am now. ~ Jeffrey Rasley

Circumspection is not one of my better, favorite conditions, really. ~ Robert Plant

When a story has gone the grand circuit, and travels back to us uncontradicted, we may reasonably begin to relax in our belief of it. If nobody questions it, it is manifestly a fiction; if it passes current, it is almost sure to be a counterfeit. The course of truth never yet ran smooth. ~ Samuel Laman Blanchard

Every vice of the Empire has been repeated in the Foundation. Inertia! Our ruling class knows one law; no
change. Despotism! They know one rule; force. Maldistribution! They know one desire; to hold what is
theirs. ~ Isaac Asimov

If it's fiction, then it better be true. ~ Sherman Alexie

In my skimmings over fiction I cannot recall any writer so continuously implicated in his own work as George Moore. ~ Susan Mitchell

We all aspire to be ourselves, an original character in a litany of fiction so vast that we know we cannot. ~ Jasper Fforde

It's really hard to think of one kind of magic as a favorite. I've been really fortunate in that I've been able to perform such a diverse range of things. ~ David Copperfield

We will be one step down from the Creator," she said, her olive-hued face tightening into an expression that she considered dramatic. "Imagining a world and then making it. ~ Walter Mosley

To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to leave him with a higher ideal of life than he had when he began. If in one small degree it shows him where he can be ... gentler, saner, cleaner, kindlier ... it is a wonder-working book. If it opens his eyes to one beauty in nature he never saw for himself and leads him one step toward the God of the Universe, it is a beneficial book ... ~ Gene Stratton-Porter

Truth is always wilder than fiction. Hold on to your hats and enjoy this page turning
look inside the world of sports betting from a good girl gone bad for love.
Laura Atchison, Author of What Would A Wise Woman Do? ~ Laura Atchison

Fiction is a lie that is told in the service of truth. ~ Tim O'Brien

Just tell your story. Pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited. So just keep going. ~ Iain Reid

Hume hummed in his head. Reason versus passion- David versus Goliath. Let the Goliath win for one last time. But the world is full of the Davids, the begging bastards, passing of their defeat as a win over the favorites. Why the world sides with the under-doggies. A favorite is nobody's favorite, but one's one. As if he has to pay a toll tax for his tolls. ~ Aporva Kala

I wonder what Lena is doing now. I always wonder what Lena is doing. Rachel, too: both my girls, my beautiful, big-eyed girls. But I worry about Rachel less. Rachel was always harder than Lena, somehow. More defiant, more stubborn, less feeling . Even as a girl, she frightened me - fierce and fiery-eyed, with a temper like my father's once was.
But Lena . . . little darling Lena, with her tangle of dark hair and her flushed, chubby cheeks. She used to rescue spiders from the pavement to keep them from getting squashed; quiet, thoughtful Lena, with the sweetest lisp to break your heart. To break my heart: my wild, uncured, erratic, incomprehensible heart. I wonder whether her front teeth still overlap; whether she still confuses the words pretzel and pencil occasionally; whether the wispy brown hair grew straight and long, or began to curl.
I wonder whether she believes the lies they told her. ~ Lauren Oliver

Just in case you're wondering," Gage says, breaking the silence, "this alliance of ours doesn't mean I like you."
"Feeling's mutual." Julian tosses him a disdainful look. ~ Laura Kreitzer

You take what you're given, whether it's the cornfields of the Midwest or the coal mines of West Virginia, and you make your fiction out of it. It's all you have. And somehow, wherever you are, it always seems to be enough. ~ Larry Brown

Nothing in life is fair except a witnessed duel. ~ Lynda Williams

Why did i so passionately require the truth? because all great fiction is true ~ Kinky Friedman

All you need is one thought and one word. When you learn how to connect them, you can do anything you like. ~ Jennifer Loiske

The goal, I suppose, any fiction writer has, no matter what your subject, is to hit the human heart and the tear ducts and the nape of the neck and to make a person feel something about the characters are going through and to experience the moral paradoxes and struggles of being human. ~ Tim O'Brien

[W]hen you're shooting a doc, you're trying to class it up because you can. You know, you're trying to make this feel like cinematic experience. And when you're doing fiction you're trying to do the opposite thing you're trying to take this very artificial experience this very artificial experience and make it feel real and visceral. ~ John Hyams

My favorite artists have always been Elvis and The Beatles and they still are! ~ Johnny Ramone

... the very concept of happiness is conditional, a fiction. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I am lucky because I can - and I like to - mix the beautiful Caraceni jackets I inherited from my grandfather with a pair of Tsubi jeans or wear a favorite pin-striped suit from him for more formal occasions. I'm crazy about pinstripes and vintage fifties fabrics. ~ Lapo Elkann

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

I hate unbreakable alibis--they are usually the first to crack.
--Hugo Anstead ~ Jennifer A. Girardin

There was no sign of any life, just erratic hints of a faded sun peeking down with sorrow on the dead world it once nourished. ~ C.J. Anderson

So what's the plan?"
"I believe that our best plan is to flush them out. If we can capture them both, there will be little reason for the others to fight."
"But if they're in the midst of the army--" Bran started.
"Bait," I said, seeing the plan at once. "There has to be bait to bring them to the front." Thinking rapidly, I added, "And I know who's to be the bait. Us, right? Only, how to get them to meet us?"
"The letter," Branaric said. "They know now that we have it."
Both looked at me, but I said nothing.
"Even if we don't have it," the Marquis said easily, "it's enough to say we do to get them to meet us. If they break the truce or try anything untoward, a chosen group will grab them, and my warriors will disperse in all directions and reassemble at a certain place on my border a week later, at which time we will reassess. I can give you all the details of the plan if you wish them."
Bran snorted a laugh. "I'm in. As if we had a choice!"
"Do we have a choice?" I asked, instantly hostile.
"I am endeavoring to give you the semblance of one," Shevraeth replied in his most polite voice.
"And if we don't agree?" I demanded.
"Then you will remain here in safety until events are resolved."
"So we are prisoners, then."
Bran was chuckling and wiping his eyes. "Life, sister, how you remind me of that old spaniel of Khesot's, Skater, when he thought someone was going to pinch his favorite chew-stick. Remember him?"
Sherwood Smith

I honestly kind of hate shopping. My favorite places to shop are rich old lady consignment stores. ~ Lykke Li

I have an idea and a first line
and that suggests the rest of it. I have little concept of what I'm going to say, or where it's going. I have some idea of how long it's going to be
but not what will happen or what the themes will be. That's the intrigue of doing it
it's a process of discovery. You get to discover what you're going to say and what it's going to mean. ~ T.C. Boyle

I want to always be youthful and have the energy to run around and play hide and seek, which is one of my favorite games. ~ Michael Jackson

Before starting work on this book, we had to ask ourselves a question what is science fiction? Seemingly simple, but in reality the answer was hard to formulate. This is the definition we settled upon:
Science fiction is a member of a group of fictional genres whose narrative drive depends upon events, technologies, societies, etc. that are impossible, unreal, or that are depicted as occurring at some time in the future, the past or in a world of secondary creation. These attributes vary widely in terms of actuality, likelihood, possibility and in the intent with which they are employed by the creator. The fundamental difference between science fiction and the other "fantastical genres" of fantasy and horror is this: the basis for the fiction is one of rationality. The sciences this rationality generates can be speculative, largely erroneous, or even impossible, but explanations are, nevertheless, generated through a materialistic worldview. The supernatural is not invoked. ~ Stephen Baxter

My favorite six letter word is
always
because it promises
so much.

My favorite five letter word is
never
because it insists on contradicting
the promise.

My favorite four letter word is
once
because it says it
happened then.

My favorite three letter word is
yes
because I'm just now learning
to say it
to my heart.

My favorite two letter word is
if
because it makes
all things possible
like this:

If not always
If not never
Then once.

Yes. ~ Kate DiCamillo