Philippine Fiction Quotes

The first two things Gaudencio Rivera was made aware of
within hours of arriving by carabao-drawn cart at the secluded town of Tagbaoran on the island province of Palawan
were these: that the most beautiful woman in creation dwelt by the river, and that it was pointless to even dream of being loved by her. ~ Dean Francis Alfar

Alan shrugged. "I love the CBC, really, but being voted its president - " "Co-president," Sputnik corrected. " - is kind of like being declared King of Nerds." "Co-king," Sputnik asserted. ~ J.M. Richards

This is what we are for, Alin," the older guardsman said, turning to his companion. Adare had never heard anyone use Birch's first name. She hadn't even known it herself. "Our lives for hers. If she refuses this, there's no saying what the zealots will do to her."

"There's no saying what the zealots will do if she agrees," Birch pointed out. "We can't save her if we're dead."

"That is a risk that the princess will have to assess for herself. Our duty is to serve."

"I thought service meant fighting," Birch protested, but the anger had gone out of him. Resignation thinned his voice.

"Sometimes, Alin," Fulton replied, nodding. "And sometimes it means dying. ~ Brian Staveley

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

A part of me sought the light in all the people I knew, but with the Shadows, it was like bringing them back from a subterfuge comma. Literally tearing the veil of blackness down and showing them the luminescence of light. ~ Laura Kreitzer

They weren't true stories; they were better than that. ~ Alice Hoffman

If the future was bared before you, would it still be yours? If the past could chase you, would you run from it? If the world crumbled tonight, would you carve your own? ~ Nicholas Rinth

I remember it taking place. They were dangerous back then. We were shut up, stopped in every way, detained by their power. They could just say one word and we had to leave! It was a horrible time for our kind."

"What happened?" I ask, my strength slowly returning.

"Well, when their leader left, years went by and a new normal set in, it became easier to get a hold on people. We came out of hiding. This, this right here is a great time for us. There are so many avenues and outlets for us to use! ~ Sunshine Rodgers

The girl signed deeply and ever so slowly made her way down to the opposite end of the case. Using the metal tongs she passed over the golden yellow ladoo and reached for the darker pieces that Mrs. Singh usually set aside. I started to protest, but suddenly noticed the coldness in her eyes staring into mine. ~ Tracey M. Hook

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

That crap about doing something with your life are luxury problems. People like us have to play by a different rules.
#ShadowofSadd #Books ~ Steen Langstrup

The lines in the corners of her eyes spoke of years of wisdom, as a tree with the number of rings increasing with each passing year. She was a small frame of a woman with piercing eyes that suggested that they knew you, understood you even. ~ F.C. Malby

Thank-you, son,' said his father. 'I want you to know we're both
proud of you. Take care, and keep in touch if you can.'
'Or even better, visit!' said his mother, 'our home isn't complete
without you! ~ Chris Tinniswood

A lot of the names in Talon reference other people or events. For example Amelia, the giant Eagle, was a "tip of my hat" to the extraordinary aviator Amelia Earhart. Both love(d) to fly! ~ Christopher Gerard

Fantasy is a reaction to the constraints of reality. ~ Stewart Stafford

You think you have a view of what's waiting for you just up the road, but then something happens, and you find out pretty quick you were looking at the wrong road. ~ Susan Meissner

We all signed up for a one-way ticket when we joined GhostWalkers. It's just my turn. ~ Christine Feehan

Novels are political not because writers carry party cards
some do, I do not
but because good fiction is about identifying with and understanding people who are not necessarily like us. By nature all good novels are political because identifying with the other is political. At the heart of the 'art of the novel' lies the human capacity to see the world through others' eyes. Compassion is the greatest strength of the novelist. ~ Orhan Pamuk

I was sitting on the couch in the living room, pouring through an old sci-fi novel I'd found in one of the ruins, and I could hear the water bubbling as he cooked. The spaghetti smelled good, but I knew he'd probably put something crazy in it like popcorn or marshmallows, so I ignored my rumbling belly. ~ Ash Gray

I was never good enough for my mum and she never let me forget it" I whisper out just as we make it to the entrance of their building "Ryan doesn't speak the words, but sometimes he makes me feel that way. ~ Sarah Clay

When you're reading, like, a character's thoughts, or when it's in first person, you're reading kind of their own story, so you have the opportunity to see what makes that character complex or complicated. And to me, that's what the whole point of fiction is. ~ Joe Meno

According to Adam One, the Fall of Man was multidimensional. The ancestral primates fell out of the trees; then they fell from vegetarianism into meat-eating. Then they fell from instinct into reason, and thus into technology; from simple signals into complex grammar, and thus into humanity; from firelessness into fire, and thence into weaponry; and from seasonal mating into an incessant sexual twitching. Then they fell from a joyous life in the moment into the anxious contemplation of the vanished past and the distant future. ~ Margaret Atwood

Her concern with landscapes and living creatures was passionate. This concern, feebly called, "the love of nature" seemed to Shevek to be something much broader than love. There are souls, he thought, whose umbilicus has never been cut. They never got weaned from the universe. They do not understand death as an enemy; they look forward to rotting and turning into humus. It was strange to see Takver take a leaf into her hand, or even a rock. She became an extension of it, it of her. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

On the misty window of her room, she let her finger trace a broken line. She was that line. ~ Azin Sametipour

We lie on the blanket, our bare bodies basking in the sun like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Only our apples were bitten a long time ago, and we ate them too. ~ Henry Martin

Haydn's instructions are imprinted on my brain much the same way Logan's face is imprinted on my heart. ~ Siobhan Davis

A stitch in time saves uncontrollable blood loss ~ Simon Haynes

Why do humans never do as they're told? Someone should replace you all with robots. No, on second though, they shouldn't, bad idea. ~ Jonathan Morris

This is what I hate most about guys like you. You didn't even try. ~ Henry V. O'Neil

Once you're labeled as mentally ill, and that's in your medical notes, then anything you say can be discounted as an artifact of your mental illness. ~ Hilary Mantel

I've never minded finding out what others thought I didn't know. Titus Ray, Chapter 3 ~ Luana Ehrlich

Before man can explore outer space he should first learn to explore the Inner Space of his mind. ~ Merlin Fraser

... but I don't think I'm the only person who is tired of books and movies full of paper-doll characters you don't care about, who have no self-respect and no respect for anybody or any institution ... ..And I don't want to sound preachy or Victorian, but I'm tired of amorality in fiction and in real life. Immorality is a fascinating human dilemma that creates suspense for the readers and tension for the characters, but where is the tension in an amoral situation? When people have no personal code, nothing is threatening and nothing is meaningful. ~ Olive Ann Burns

Anyway, several rewrites later, Del Rey Books did publish my first novel, and it did become the first work of fiction on the New York Times trade paperback bestseller list. ~ Terry Brooks

People see my body, but my soul is lost, and I do not have anything left to give."
~Love is respect ♥~ ~ Charlena E. Jackson

What fiction could match - in drama or suspense - man's first walk on the Moon? ~ Leonard Nimoy

Hindsight isn't a super power. ~ SE Zbasnik

There's still much to do; still so much to learn. Mr. La Forge – engage! ~ Captain Picard

My spirit has been around far longer than my soul
I've lived several lifetimes already. And one this novel has been written, I will have lived several more. ~ Terry A. O'Neal

I tell the story to you now, but in each telling the story itself changes a little, changes direction, and that in turn changes you and me. So be very careful not only in how you repeat it but in how you remember it, goslings. More often than you realize it, the world is shaped by two things
stories told and the memories they leave behind. ~ Vera Nazarian

when you walk the path of revenge, know that someone will always follow your trail ~ Aziz Hamza

No food, you die in weeks. No water, you die in days. ~ Henry V. O'Neil

One of the things I've always liked about science fiction is the way it makes you think about things, and look at things from angles you'd never have thought about before. ~ Jo Walton

I'm a master of story. Almost a living fiction myself, so resilient am I! Spider-Man beats me down, I rise! Daredevil imprisons me, I escape! That's because stories have power! He who controls the narrative controls the audience, and you're all the audience, every one of you. As they say, the world's a stage ... ~ Mark Waid

As though she had entered a fable, as though she were no more than words crawling along a dry page, or as though she were becoming that page itself, that surface on which her story would be written and across which there blew a hot and merciless wind, turning her body to papyrus, her skin to parchment, her soul to paper. ~ Salman Rushdie

Let's press ahead a little further by sketching out a few variations among short shorts:

ONE THRUST OF INCIDENT. (Examples: Paz,
Mishima, Shalamov, Babel, W. C. Williams.) In these short shorts the time span is extremely brief, a few hours, maybe even a few minutes: Life is grasped in symbolic compression. One might say that these short shorts constitute epiphanies (climactic moments of high grace or realization) that have been tom out of their contexts. You have to supply the contexts yourself, since if the contexts were there, they'd no longer be short shorts.

LIFE ROLLED UP. (Examples: Tolstoy's 'Alyosha the Pot,' Verga's 'The Wolf,' D. H. Lawrence's 'A Sick Collier.') In these you get the illusion of sustained narrative, since they deal with lives over an extended period of time; but actually these lives are so compressed into typicality and paradigm, the result seems very much like a single incident. Verga's 'Wolf' cannot but repeat her passions, Tolstoy's Alyosha his passivity. Themes of obsession work especially well in this kind of short short.

SNAP-SHOT OR SINGLE FRAME. (Examples: Garda Marquez, Boll, Katherine Anne Porter.) In these we have no depicted event or incident, only an interior monologue or flow of memory. A voice speaks, as it were, into the air. A mind is revealed in cross-section - and the cut is rapid. One would guess that this is the hardest kind of short short to write: There are many pitfalls such as tiresome ~ Irving Howe

Down in the cellar the Gestapo were licensed to practice was the Ministry of Justice called 'heightened interrogation'. The rules had been drawn up by civilised men in warm offices and they stipulated the presence of a doctor. ~ Robert Harris

The world often seemed more like a template for fiction than something that should be indulged in for its own sake. ~ Dan Simmons

I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative. ~ E.L. Doctorow

Fiction that isn't an author's personal adventure into the frightening or the unknown isn't worth writing for anything but money. ~ Jonathan Franzen