Fiction And Nonfiction Quotes

I used to distinguish between my fiction and nonfiction in terms of superiority or inferiority. ~ Peter Matthiessen

considering that lexicons and dictionaries are practically a high art form in German- speaking countries. The entry merges Essad Bey and Wolfgang von Weisl into one person. It explains that "Wolfgang (von) Weisl" also used the pseudonyms Leo Noussimbaum, Essad Bey, and Kurban Said - and hence the Austrian journalist, who otherwise had only a travel book and a book on Austrian artillery to his credit, suddenly was the prolific author of approximately twenty works of fiction and nonfiction ~ Tom Reiss

A typical biography relying upon individuals' notorious memories and the anecdotes they've invented contains a high degree of fiction, yet is considered 'nonfiction.' ~ Joyce Carol Oates

People who read literary fiction (as opposed to popular fiction or nonfiction) were better able to detect another person's emotions, and the theory proposed was that literary fiction engages the reader in a process of decoding the characters' thoughts and motives in a way that popular fiction and nonfiction, being less complex, do not. ~ Daniel J. Levitin

In terms of going back and forth between fiction and nonfiction - in which I'll include memoir, biography, and true crime - is that one relieves the other. ~ Kathryn Harrison

That part of what I loved about poetry was how the distinction between fiction and nonfiction didn't obtain, how the correspondence between text and world was less important than the intensities of the poem itself, what possibilities of feeling were opened up in the present tense of reading. ~ Ben Lerner

I've long been interested in the role of 'minor characters' in major events. This has been the focus of a lot of the fiction and nonfiction I've written. ~ Thomas Mallon

There's no division on my bookshelf between fiction and nonfiction. As far as I'm concerned, fiction is about the truth. ~ Arundhati Roy

I've seen a lot of the United States, having stayed in so many different cities and towns for work. It's such a strange and fascinating country, and instead of learning about it through a textbook, I would rather discover its history and traditions and institutions through fiction and nonfiction writers. ~ Hope Davis

I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction. ~ Irvine Welsh

ROBERT MASELLO is the author of many previous works of fiction and nonfiction, most recently the novels Blood and Ice and The Medusa Amulet. A native of Evanston, Illinois, he studied writing under the novelists Robert Stone and Geoffrey Wolff at Princeton, and has since taught and lectured at many leading universities. For six years, he was the visiting lecturer in literature at Claremont McKenna College. He now lives and works in Santa Monica, ~ Robert Masello

Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem. ~ Jonathan Coe

It's hard to do fiction and nonfiction simultaneously. ~ Erica Jong

There is a difference between fiction and nonfiction deeper than technique or intention. I value both but genuinely believe that fiction can tell a larger truth. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

look, and I'm sure you'll be amazed at the wealth of great books - usually there are several hundred freebies in virtually every category of fiction and nonfiction, every day of the year. And these aren't just the ~ Steve Weber

Sitting between the two professors, I enjoyed their contradictory advice. I sat there smiling, thinking of the first message I received from John Berger. It was a beautiful handwritten letter, from a writer who had been my hero for years: 'Your fiction and nonfiction - they walk you around the world like your two legs.' That settled it for me. ~ Arundhati Roy

Idiot America is a strange, disordered place. Everything is on the wrong shelves. The truth of something is defined by how many people will attest to it, and facts are defined by those people's fervency. Fiction and nonfiction are defined by how well they sell. The best sellers are on one shelf, cheek by jowl, whether what's contained in them is true or not. People wander blindly, following the Gut into dark corners and aisles that lead nowhere, confusing possibilities with threats, jumping at shadows, stumbling around. They trip over piles of fiction left strewn around the floor of the nonfiction aisles. They fall down. They land on other people, and those other people can get hurt. ~ Charles P. Pierce

An author's ability to bring a marketing synopsis to the table - along with a great manuscript - makes a difference in what books get picked up. This is true for both fiction and nonfiction titles. You need to show your publisher what you've got in your marketing arsenal. ~ M.J. Rose

He would write it for the reason he felt that all great literature, fiction and nonfiction, was written: truth comes out, in the end it always comes out. He would write it because he felt he had to. ~ Stephen King

You should stay and keep me company, so I don't get lonely."

"You don't seem like the type of guy who gets lonely."

"Is that a compliment or an insult?"

Analia only shrugged. ~ Kiersten Fay

There were things she wanted to say, but they were all jumbled up in her head and if she tried they'd come out backwards and mixed up and wrong.

There were things she needed to say, but she was hanging on by a fraying thread and feared if she tried the thread would break, sending her plummeting alone into the abysm.

There were things she would have to say, but they should wait for later. After. ~ G.S. Jennsen

In the ensuing chapters, we will look in some detail at particular manifestations of the modern scientific ideology and the false paths down which it has led us. We will consider how biological determinism has been used to explain and justify inequalities within and between societies and to claim that those inequalities can never be changed. We will see how a theory of human nature has been developed using Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection to claim that social organization is also unchangeable because it is natural. We will see how problems of health and disease have been located within the individual so that the individual becomes a problem for society to cope with rather than society becoming a problem for the individual. And we will see how simple economic relationships masquerading as facts of nature can drive the entire direction of biological research and technology. ~ Richard C. Lewontin

In those first hours after he drowned, when the catastrophe was still confined to Calabash beach, and to Jake, Joe and me, its speed was impossible to reconcile with its scale. Nothing so big could happen this fast; it defied the laws of physics, it could not be true. Death is too much for the mind to register in a matter of minutes; the incalculable magnitude can only be absorbed by increment, day by day. As each day allows a new glimpse of its immensity, and the aftershock extends beyond the beach to reach hundreds of people all over the world, my comprehension slowly expands until its dimensions resemble a more accurate impression of the truth. But the bigger his death grows, the more inconceivable it becomes. It feels like an ambitious piece of performance art; a work of fiction, not real life. How strange that the truth of my own situation should be so much clearer to everybody else. ~ Decca Aitkenhead

My pastor, Pete Wilson, gave a message on prayer, specifically citing this idea many of us have that prayer is a kind of transaction. beside him on the platform, an object the size of a refrigerator stood cloaked beneath a black cover. He said, 'most of us have reduced prayer down to a transaction. A way to manipulate what we want. A vending machine.' At that point, he yanked off the cover revealing a large vending machine, loaded with all kinds of snacks. He inserted some coins and pushed the button for peanut M&Ms (smart man, my pastor). Nothing happened. He hit the machine a couple of times, tried to rock it. Nothing.
He continued. 'Most of the time when we go to God, it's because we want something. If we get what we want, we turn and walk off, satisfied. If we don't get what we want, we get frustrated; we kick the machine and blame God for not answering our request.'
This 'transaction' view of prayer will always disappoint us because at the root of it, we think it's all about us. but prayer is so much more than giving God a list of our wants and needs or, in some cases, our demands. Prayer is communication. It's talking and listening. ~ Diane Moody

Just tell him to keep his hands to himself and his python in his pants. ~ Evangeline Anderson

Oh, oh. My heart starts that quivering, fluttering thing it does whenever he hints at his desire for me. Lacing his fingers through mine, he moves to close the gap between us. I know he's only holding my hand, but it's the manner in which his fingers curl around mine, and the way his eyes bore into me that makes it seem much more intimate. ~ Siobhan Davis

Dust is not a constant. There's not a fixed quantity that has always been the same. Conscious beings make Dust - they renew it all the time, by thinking and feeling and reflecting, by gaining wisdom and passing it on. And if you help everyone else in your worlds to do that, by helping them to learn and understand about themselves and each other and the way everything works, and by showing them how to be kind instead of cruel, and patient instead of hasty, and cheerful instead of surly, and above all how to keep their minds open and free and curious ... Then they will renew enough to replace what is lost through one window. So there could be one left open. ~ Philip Pullman

I have knowledge; I'm responsible. If I sit by and do nothing while I have the ability to change, to help, then I'm just as much a criminal as any. Power begets responsibility...You should know that. ~ Brandon R. Chinn

Physics has entered a remarkable era. Ideas that were once the realm of science fiction are now entering our theoretical - and maybe even experimental - grasp. Brand-new theoretical discoveries about extra dimensions have irreversibly changed how particle physicists, astrophysicists, and cosmologists now think about the world. The sheer number and pace of discoveries tells us that we've most likely only scratched the surface of the wondrous possibilities that lie in store. Ideas have taken on a life of their own. ~ Lisa Randall

Oh r-really? Do t-tell?" I quirked an eyebrow back at him.

"Well, usually it's best to take your shoes and socks off before you step in the stream, better balance on an uneven surface. Also, you avoid that unpleasant squelchy feeling when you wear the shoes againlater." He paused, smirking. "Also, if
I was going to paddle barefoot "I was going to paddle barefoot upstream in Yorkshire, I'd wait until at least May before I tried it. But you go ahead, love. You're clearly a Spartan lass. ~ J.A. Ironside

If you want to write fiction, the best thing you can do is take two aspirins, lie down in a dark room, and wait for the feeling to pass. ~ Lawrence Block

I was slightly thankful when Mom finally came out and unlocked the car. It was warm and toasty inside and it smelt like home. There was not the slightest smell of something that didn't belong home. ~ Erica Sehyun Song

I started seriously applying myself to writing fiction immediately after I finished graduate school. By 'seriously,' I mean that, instead of noodling along on a story, finishing it or not as the mood struck me, I set out to complete what I started, to polish it to the best of my ability, and to send out the finished story. ~ Jane Lindskold

The doctrine that all men are, in any sense, or have been, at any time, free and equal, is an utterly baseless fiction. ~ Thomas Huxley

The warbling of birds emerged from the wind-swept trees flanking the road; the swishing branches tangled together overhead like kissing tongues. Children shrieked as they hopped off school buses and raced each other home. Lawn mowers purred like great mechanical cats, delighted with their dinners of shredded grass. The road unraveled through such forested neighborhoods, the kind where families host barbecues and children still ride bikes after sunset and porches creak under the weight of seasonal decor. The kind where kidnappings are flukes and horned men are freaks of nature. ~ Angela Panayotopulos

I wanted to give you something that would last forever. Something that would surpass the world, that would still be alive and bright even after you passed away. Something beautiful. For your eyes and smile only. But I never found it. All I could give you is words. Words which were as fleeting as the heartbeats that shook my soul whenever you looked my way. ~ F.K. Preston

Christopher's heart bled that night and he could not sleep. Deborah who used to call him numerous times in a day and send countless messages was now not answering his calls. And she never called him. ~ Ayibu Makolo

At DePauw, I was teaching writing and fiction. The things I wanted to teach, more than anything else, were form and theory of the novel, of narrative. I liked those classes. ~ Nic Pizzolatto

Fiction about mining has a long tradition - Emile Zola's 'Germinal' and Upton Sinclair's 'King Coal' come to mind - and most readers will be aware of the industry's harsh conditions. ~ Floyd Skloot

She's shed her skins
and plasma jeans, gets around in 2K
retro gear like the frock she wears today;
a loose, white elegy to what's been lost.
Already she's flowing back into herself
the way a river flows to fill a creek bed.
But some hard layer has washed away
and left her softer, more interested. ~ Lisa Jacobson

In every big-budget science fiction movie there's the moment when a spaceship as large as New York suddenly goes to light speed. A twanging noise like a wooden ruler being plucked over the edge of a desk, a dazzling refraction of light, and suddenly the stars have all been stretched out thin and it's gone. This was exactly like that, except that instead of a gleaming twelve-mile-long spaceship, it was an off-white twenty-year-old motor scooter. And you didn't have the special rainbow effects. And it probably wasn't going at more than two hundred miles an hour. And instead of a pulsing whine sliding up the octaves, it just went putputputputput ...
VROOOOSH.
But it was exactly like that anyway. ~ Neil Gaiman

We walk in dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We live for the One. We die for the One.
the Ranger oath ~ J. Michael Straczynski

It seems like you are used to blowing down my house of cards that I carefully built. I isolate myself and cried a lot of tears because of you. My heart has been battered and broken too many times because of you. Honestly, my self-esteem is shot down as low as I can go because of you. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

I thought carefully as I watched Eyuran treat Uncle Orewen's wounds. There is no one in their right mind who would assault a Danna, simply because the enemy of an individual becomes the enemy of the whole kennar. Kennar are usually related to each other, which would probably make the unlucky person the enemy of the entire Tue Dannan.

And Danna settle things the old way. ~ Jeno Marz

Because I write fiction, I don't write autobiography, and to me they are very different things. The first-person narrative is a very intimate thing, but you are not addressing other people as 'I' - you are inhabiting that 'I.' ~ Kate Atkinson

You're the one taking all the romance out of this," he said. "It's supposed to go, 'that was so brave, how you stood up for your sister like that!' 'Oh, that, what, no, it's what any dragon would do.' 'No, no - you're special. I can tell.' 'Not as special as you. There's a magic about you I've never found in any other dragon!' 'Why - why do I feel as though I've known you forever?' 'Because you have...and you will.' Fireworks! True love and happiness for the rest of our lives! ~ Tui T. Sutherland

She enjoyed this part, despite the out-and-out ban on fiction, but it was always a pleasure soaked in guilt. ~ Nikita Lalwani

Then the sun came up and shook the night chill out of the air the way you'd shake a rug. ~ John Steinbeck

I couldn't shake Zander's beady red eyes or the noise of his pounding wings behind us. His hot breath and foul stench reached for us, but couldn't catch us as we soared above liquid green fields in the Realm Beyond. ~ Dianne Bright