3,834 Quotes About Fiction

You're only going to tire yourself out trying. Best to quit while you're ahead. That way, no one gets hurt.''How very droll,' Antoinette said, drawing close to the bars of the cage. 'Because I was going to say precisely the same thing about your little revolution.''It's hardly a revolution if the man in charge condones it,' Troius said.'It's amusing that you assume it is that man who controls Thremedon,' Antoinette snarled.

How do I know what I think until I see what I say?

In my opinion, it is impossible to create characters until one has spent a long time in studying men, as it is impossible to speak a language until it has been seriously acquired. Not being old enough to invent, I content myself with narrating, and I beg the reader to assure himself of the truth of a story in which all the characters, with the exception of the heroine, are still alive.

The entire history of mankind is problem solving, or science fiction swallowing ideas, digesting them, and excreting formulas for survival. You can't have one without the other. No fantasy, no reality. No studies concerning loss, no gain. No imagination, no will. No impossible dreams: No possible solutions.

Rewriting the narrative so as to make my life what I want it to be is the stuff of fiction penned by the hands of fools who have yet to realize that truth writes stories bigger than any eraser fiction can conjure up.

A good book isn't written, it's rewritten.

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story.

Everybody works according to his ability, some doing more, some doing less, but everyone ought to know whether he is doing good or harm. Artists are not released from that obligation, especially as there are no works of art which do neither harm nor good. If a book, a picture or a melody is accepted by a reader, a spectator or a listener, it means that the reader, spectator or listener has had his emotions stirred; and emotions must be either harmful or useful. They cannot be neutral.