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Fiction Quotes

I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet Picture Quote #1

I really struggle to pinpoint whether I became a scientist because I like science fiction, or did I gravitate to science fiction because I identified strongly with scientists Picture Quote #1

The magic of fiction seems to be the more specific you are, the more universal you end up becoming Picture Quote #1

Once I got started, I wanted the life of a writer so fiercely that nothing could stop me. I wanted the intensity, the sense of aliveness that came from writing fiction. I’m still that way. My life is worth living when I’ve completed a good paragraph Picture Quote #1

Once you step inside, history has to be rewritten to include you. A fiction develops a story that weaves you into the social fabric, giving you roots and a local identity. You are assimilated, and in erasing your differences and making you one of their own, the community can maintain belief in its wholeness and purity. After two or three generations, nobody remembers the story is fiction. It has become fact. And this is how history is made Picture Quote #1

For those of us who take literature very seriously, picking up a work of fiction is the start of an adventure comparable in anticipatory excitement to what I imagine is felt by an athlete warming up for a competition, a mountain climber preparing for the ascent: it is the beginning of a process whose outcome is unknown, one that promises the thrill and elation of success but may as easily end in bitter disappointment. Committed readers realize at a certain point that literature is where we have learned a good part of the little we know about living Picture Quote #1

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The process of writing fiction is totally unconscious. It comes from what you are learning, as you live, from within. For me, all writing is a process of discovery. We are looking for the meaning of life. No matter where you are, there are conflicts and dramas everywhere. It is the process of what it means to be a human being; how you react and are reacted upon, these inward and outer pressures. If you are writing with a direct cause in mind, you are writing propaganda. It’s fatal for a fiction writer Picture Quote #1

That’s what fiction writers do: create characters and do terrible things to them for the entertainment of others. If they feel guilty enough, they write happy endings Picture Quote #1

A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them Picture Quote #1

Fiction is the only way I know a human being can inhabit the mind of another human being Picture Quote #1

The appeal of science fiction has always been its iconoclasm... But in order to be an iconoclast, an author must be more than merely aware of the idol he wishes to destroy. He must be intimate with it and understand it in all its aspects. This means that he must have devoted serious thought to it, and have beliefs of his own which will stand up in the place of the broken idol. In other words, any child can complain, but it takes an adult to clash with accepted beliefs... an adult with ideas Picture Quote #1

Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing Picture Quote #1

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Sentiment and nostalgia are fatal for fiction. One must go into the territory of the imagination with sure feet, hot fainting with glorious misery Picture Quote #1

It is only through fiction and the dimension of the imaginary that we can learn something real about individual experience. Any other approach is bound to be general and abstract Picture Quote #1

I don’t think there is enough respect in general for the time it takes to write consistently good fiction. Too many people think they will master writing overnight, or that they are as good as they will ever be Picture Quote #1

There may always be another reality to make fiction of the truth we think we’ve arrived at Picture Quote #1

My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so: I am a storyteller Picture Quote #1

I have put my pen at the service of some of the most persecuted and misunderstood people in the world. So far as I know nothing of the kind has ever been attempted before in fiction Picture Quote #1

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When people ask me to define science fiction and fantasy I say they are the literatures that explore the fact that we are toolmakers and users, and are always changing our environment Picture Quote #1

People say it’s not what happens in your life that matters, it’s what you think happened. But this qualification, obviously, did not go far enough. It was quite possible that the central event of your life could be something that didn’t happen, or something you thought didn’t happen. Otherwise there’d be no need for fiction, there’d only be memoirs and histories Picture Quote #1

Dialogue in fiction is always written to be read in silence. The page is the limit. Dialogue on stage and on the screen is meant to be spoken. The voice is the limit Picture Quote #1

Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention Picture Quote #1

People in science fiction flicks always seemed to know useful things about the places time travel took them. But what if the time traveler had been only an average history student? What then? Picture Quote #1

Fiction helps me to reconnect with the true, deep weirdness inherent in everyday reality, in our dealings with one another, in just being alive Picture Quote #1

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There are no such things as happy endings. Never. They’re totally manufactured by fiction writers who choose to end the story on a high point Picture Quote #1

Fiction, with its preference for what is small and might elsewhere seem irrelevant; its facility for smuggling us into another skin and allowing us to live a new life there; its painstaking devotion to what without it might go unnoticed and unseen; its respect for contingency, and the unlikely and odd; its willingness to expose itself to moments of low, almost animal being and make them nobly illuminating, can deliver truths we might not otherwise stumble on Picture Quote #1

Science fiction is not about the freedom of imagination. It’s about a free imagination pinched and howling in a vise that other people call real life Picture Quote #1

The gospel is fiction when judged by the empire, but the empire is fiction when judged by the gospel Picture Quote #1

Science fiction is very well suited to asking philosophical questions; questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know Picture Quote #1

The most visceral science fiction always takes place in the past and focuses on the humdrum Picture Quote #1

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Text Quotes

I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet (Fiction Quotes) I really struggle to pinpoint whether I became a scientist because I like science fiction, or did I gravitate to science fiction because I identified strongly with scientists (Fiction Quotes) The magic of fiction seems to be the more specific you are, the more universal you end up becoming (Fiction Quotes) Once I got started, I wanted the life of a writer so fiercely that nothing could stop me. I wanted the intensity, the sense of aliveness that came from writing fiction. I’m still that way. My life is worth living when I’ve completed a good paragraph (Fiction Quotes) Once you step inside, history has to be rewritten to include you. A fiction develops a story that weaves you into the social fabric, giving you roots and a local identity. You are assimilated, and in erasing your differences and making you one of their own, the community can maintain belief in its wholeness and purity. After two or three generations, nobody remembers the story is fiction. It has become fact. And this is how history is made (Fiction Quotes) For those of us who take literature very seriously, picking up a work of fiction is the start of an adventure comparable in anticipatory excitement to what I imagine is felt by an athlete warming up for a competition, a mountain climber preparing for the ascent: it is the beginning of a process whose outcome is unknown, one that promises the thrill and elation of success but may as easily end in bitter disappointment. Committed readers realize at a certain point that literature is where we have learned a good part of the little we know about living (Fiction Quotes) The process of writing fiction is totally unconscious. It comes from what you are learning, as you live, from within. For me, all writing is a process of discovery. We are looking for the meaning of life. No matter where you are, there are conflicts and dramas everywhere. It is the process of what it means to be a human being; how you react and are reacted upon, these inward and outer pressures. If you are writing with a direct cause in mind, you are writing propaganda. It’s fatal for a fiction writer (Fiction Quotes) That’s what fiction writers do: create characters and do terrible things to them for the entertainment of others. If they feel guilty enough, they write happy endings (Fiction Quotes) A million people can call the mountains a fiction, yet it need not trouble you as you stand atop them (Fiction Quotes) Fiction is the only way I know a human being can inhabit the mind of another human being (Fiction Quotes) The appeal of science fiction has always been its iconoclasm... But in order to be an iconoclast, an author must be more than merely aware of the idol he wishes to destroy. He must be intimate with it and understand it in all its aspects. This means that he must have devoted serious thought to it, and have beliefs of his own which will stand up in the place of the broken idol. In other words, any child can complain, but it takes an adult to clash with accepted beliefs... an adult with ideas (Fiction Quotes) Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing (Fiction Quotes) Sentiment and nostalgia are fatal for fiction. One must go into the territory of the imagination with sure feet, hot fainting with glorious misery (Fiction Quotes) It is only through fiction and the dimension of the imaginary that we can learn something real about individual experience. Any other approach is bound to be general and abstract (Fiction Quotes) I don’t think there is enough respect in general for the time it takes to write consistently good fiction. Too many people think they will master writing overnight, or that they are as good as they will ever be (Fiction Quotes) There may always be another reality to make fiction of the truth we think we’ve arrived at (Fiction Quotes) My fiction may, now and again, illuminate aspects of the human condition, but I do not consciously set out to do so: I am a storyteller (Fiction Quotes) I have put my pen at the service of some of the most persecuted and misunderstood people in the world. So far as I know nothing of the kind has ever been attempted before in fiction (Fiction Quotes) When people ask me to define science fiction and fantasy I say they are the literatures that explore the fact that we are toolmakers and users, and are always changing our environment (Fiction Quotes) People say it’s not what happens in your life that matters, it’s what you think happened. But this qualification, obviously, did not go far enough. It was quite possible that the central event of your life could be something that didn’t happen, or something you thought didn’t happen. Otherwise there’d be no need for fiction, there’d only be memoirs and histories (Fiction Quotes) Dialogue in fiction is always written to be read in silence. The page is the limit. Dialogue on stage and on the screen is meant to be spoken. The voice is the limit (Fiction Quotes) Now it is done. Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention (Fiction Quotes) People in science fiction flicks always seemed to know useful things about the places time travel took them. But what if the time traveler had been only an average history student? What then? (Fiction Quotes) Fiction helps me to reconnect with the true, deep weirdness inherent in everyday reality, in our dealings with one another, in just being alive (Fiction Quotes) There are no such things as happy endings. Never. They’re totally manufactured by fiction writers who choose to end the story on a high point (Fiction Quotes) Fiction, with its preference for what is small and might elsewhere seem irrelevant; its facility for smuggling us into another skin and allowing us to live a new life there; its painstaking devotion to what without it might go unnoticed and unseen; its respect for contingency, and the unlikely and odd; its willingness to expose itself to moments of low, almost animal being and make them nobly illuminating, can deliver truths we might not otherwise stumble on (Fiction Quotes) Science fiction is not about the freedom of imagination. It’s about a free imagination pinched and howling in a vise that other people call real life (Fiction Quotes) The gospel is fiction when judged by the empire, but the empire is fiction when judged by the gospel (Fiction Quotes) Science fiction is very well suited to asking philosophical questions; questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know (Fiction Quotes) The most visceral science fiction always takes place in the past and focuses on the humdrum (Fiction Quotes)

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