68 Quotes About On-fiction

Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.

Fiction is the only way to redeem the formlessness of life

All novels . . . are concerned with the enigma of the self. As soon as you create an imaginary being, a character, you are automatically confronted by the question: what is the self? How can it be grasped?

History has its truth, and so has legend. Legendary truth is of another nature than historical truth. Legendary truth is invention whose result is reality. Furthermore, history and legend have the same goal; to depict eternal man beneath momentary man.

Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it.

...all I knew were novels. It gave me pause, for a moment, that all my reference points were fiction, that all my narratives were lies.

The best fiction is true.

There is no society that does not highly value fictional storytelling. Ever.

Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.