Fiction Quotes - Page 4

My greatest qualification for writing fiction was my ability, as a child, to lie with a straight face.

But then, that’s the beauty of writing stories—each one is an exploratory journey in search of a reason and a shape. And when you find that reason and that shape, there’s no feeling lik

Is this how humanity waves good-bye?Hell no.

Six nervous wives at the sink, each quiet as a queen on a chessboard.

Granted, there is always much that is hidden, and we must not forget that the writing of history - however dryly it is done and however sincere the desire for objectivity - remains literature. History's third dimension is always fiction

You two are bound to one another. You always have been … and you can't run away from what you are. No matter where you go, your feelings for her are going to follow you.

I thought you'd be interested in these things as a government man. Ain't you mixed up in the prices of things we eat or something? Ain't that it? Making them more costly or something. Making the grits cost more and the grunts less?

The telephone bell was ringing wildly, but without result, since there was no-one in the room but the corpse.

Gina was beautiful like a sunset. You see it and you think of how beautiful it is, and then it’s over and you move on. But Trista was beautiful like a song. The kind of song you play over and over and never get sick of hearing. The kind of song he wanted to write for her, but he knew he would never be able to string together the right combination of notes to show her how he really felt.

Remember, any lie you are told, even deliberately, is often a more significant fact than a truth told in all sincerity.

I was so drunk I couldn't tell a vagina from a bullet hole

… the greatest mystery, the greatest wonder of creation is that we are capable of both relentless reason and boundless love ... It is not about what we are, but what we can become.– Govinda Shauri

I refuse to live in a constant fighting match, Landon. It will not do!' 'And I’ve tried living without you, and it just won’t do!

Great characters- They are pivotal for a great plot. THEN a solid plot: Why then? If you do not have great characters it is impossible to create a good plot, nonetheless a solid one. Once you have built great characters for the scenes, there you have it. It’s just like the movies, you cannot have a great film if the characters are frail and their lines are weak as well. I guess great world-building comes along with a good plot. If there is something that will work fine in a novel is how you will develop from the theme. You’ve got to establish a good timeline, and from there it comes a world. You see the technical matters don’t match or matter as much to me. Even a poorly written story, if there is a good plot and great characters on it will make a divine combination There are simply many cases of it over the mainstream and that even reached the big screen.

I tapped around on my new Miracle Phone—a gift from Joseph—as I listened to the discussion about our next move. I wasn’t trying to be rude, but I’d recently become addicted to this one game on my Miracle Phone. Really, I was listening. I could multitask like no other. Trust me, there’s an app for that.

Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.

It is a very difficult thing, to love another.To some it comes easily, naturally even. Whilst for others, the road to such things is long and arduous and fraught with danger.

I stole you, among others, from the streets of God’s birthplace. I forced you to work as a slave. Imprisoned, mistreated and starved you and your companion. To top it off, I am in the process of selling your life to the highest bidder. Why would you trust me?

The line between fiction and fact is at times factual and at times fictional

You've a pretty good nerve," said Ratchett. "Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?"It will not."If you're holding out for more, you won't get it. I know what a thing's worth to me."I, also M. Ratchett."What's wrong with my proposition?"Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face, M. Ratchett," he said.

From personal experience, I know for sure that the number one thing that saddens the dead more than our grief — is not being conscious of their existence around us. They do want you to talk to them as if they were still in a physical body. They do want you to play their favorite music, keep their pictures out, and continue living as if they never went away. However, time and "corruption" have blurred the lines between the living and the dead, between man and Nature, and between the physical and the etheric. There was a time when man could communicate with animals, plants, the ether, and the dead. To do so requires one to access higher levels of consciousness, and this knowledge has been hidden from us. Why? Because then the plants would tell us how to cure ourselves. The animals would show us their feelings, and the dead would tell us that good acts do matter. In all, we would come to know that we are all one. And most importantly, we would be alerted of threats and opportunities, good and evil, truth vs. fiction. We would have eyes working for humanity from every angle, and this threatens "the corrupt". Secret societies exist to hide these truths, and to make sure lies are preserved from generation to generation.

I shall be up before you are awake; I shall be afield before you are up; and I shall have breakfasted before you are afield. In short, I shall astonish you all.

To get girls he had figured out that all you had to do was talk little, the bare minimum, and listen much, without ever passing judgment. [Mister Gregory]

He never had nothing of his own before, except the kid, and he can’t claim but half the credit, there, maybe less. T.J.’s blond like his mamma, and stubborn, too. Won’t let nobody hold him except her. Cries every time his daddy picks him up. Every time he looks in those wet blue eyes, he nearly loses it. His own son hates him. Can’t blame the kid for having an opinion.

Cursed the crown that brought such grief to me

Big lots,' I said, seeing the eighty-year-old oaks and shady lawns. The houses were set way back and had iron fences and stone drives. The harder to hear your neighbors scream, my dear,' was David’s answer, and I sent my head up and down in agreement.

Infatuation burns itself out,' she says. 'Friendship mixed with old chemistry--that can last a lifetime.

There are two ways to ruin any chances of leading a happy life. The first is to chase a goal twenty-four hours a day, day after day, and gladly give up all the little laughs and joys that life has to offer in exchange for that ever-elusive moment of jubilation. The second way is far worse, in that it NEVER fails. You know what it is, Sam? Falling in love with someone who chases a goal twenty four hours a day.

Writing is about truth, whether it be fiction or a school essay. Don't give in and 'fake it till you make it.' Criticize what upsets you.

Soon I find myself squatting on the floor. I am still striking my face; not with my fists this time, but with wide-open hands. I am slapping myself. The sounds I make when my palms meet my cheeks are like an unrelenting round of applause. I am clapping myself. Or clapping for myself. I start to giggle.All the voices are receding now. I am no longer filled with rage or disappointment. I clap and clap and simply cannot stop.

If I keep observing the uranium, which means a little more than keeping my eyes on the pot on my desk and involves something akin to surrounding it with a whole system of Geiger counters, I can freeze it in such a way that it stops emitting radiation.Although Turing first suggested the idea as a theoretical construct, it turns out that it is not just mathematical fiction. Experiments in the last decade have demonstrated the real possibility of using observation to inhibit the progress of a quantum system.

What an interesting contrast between us, even just in the consideration of one woman. Your complete disregard for her will ironically be your destruction, while my regard for her will be my triumph over you.

There is nothing to me but you. I know it’s pathetic but, oh darling, it’s true.

Words, to me, are the same as an instrument is to a musician. I never know where this typewriter is going to take me until I begin. I never know what I'm feeling until I read over what I have written.

Love is the only emotion so unexplainable and unique, that not even the greatest of writers could hope to contain it within their meagre words.

Oh I'm sure you're right," Auntie said. "Probably she's just as you say. But she looks to me like a very clever girl, and adaptable; you can see that from the shape of her ears.

Who is she, after all? Not a member of the Party. Not even a Russian...What can she do, really, but watch the ginger-haired sacrificial lamb get slaughtered? One wrong move and Florence herself might be on the chopping block herself

When I walk, I walk with you. Where I go, you're with me always.

I write fiction not for my readers and not for myself. I write fiction for the sake of those odd heroic characters that are contained therein. They are counting on me as much as I am counting on them.

This is one of the problems with reality: the extent to which it resembles bad fiction.

I will not be a victim. I will not think like a victim. I am going to avenge all those little girls. I am going to win.

So much is lost, he said, in the shipwreck. What remains are fragments, and if you don't hold on to them the sea will take them too.

I don't know. But it takes a special woman to have such a great love - Zhongwen

Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering.

Florence, listen to me carefully.... Take whatever that agent offers you. Give him what he wants, and don’t ask too many questions. Get yourself an exit visa as soon as you can. Then leave! Disappear. Forget this wretched place

Freaky kids like us can’t ever be normal- Tyler says smugly- Our generation is some new kind of “evolutionary development”, my shrink says- “Normal” is just “average”, not cool. My latest diagnosis is “A.P.M”, Acute Premature Melancholia”, usually an affliction of late middle age, they think is genetic since Ty Senoir has had it all his life, too.You look if you might be A.P.M, too, Sky: that kind of pissed-off mopey look in your face like you swallowed something really gross and can’t spit it out.

It had seemed to me an elegant nightmare concoction made by adults for adults, to further the aims and fantasies of adults, and what have children to do with such things?

Of course, the fact that Dostoevsky can tell a juicy story isn’t enough to make him great. If it were, Judith Krantz and John Grisham would be great fiction writers, and by any but the most commercial standards they’re not even very good.

Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer.

... The use of your gift for good is your responsibility. You must decide for yourself.

From Olsen's Nation: "Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one. Standing as one, the world now sincerely regrets Iran’s nuclear program." — President Bodvar Olsen, fifth State of the Union address

The Wheel of Time spins: there is beginning and there is end. But why does the Wheel of Time spin? Is it some divine force that propels it? Or is that force humanity, people in search of change and a better way of life?– Asvattama Bharadvaja

Sometimes just getting through each day requires almost superhuman strength.

The only thing better than a well-read book is a well-read book only read by yourself.

...we haven't had any accidents for months now...Everything on that island is perfectly fine.

The pupil of a goat's eye is elongate like a cat's, but if you look closely you'll see that it's in the horizontal position, and if you look closer still you'll see that it's less gracefully shaped, more of a ragged slot, dirty yellow. And you'll see that the white of a goat's eye is all black.

I am the happiest person on this world, who has never seen ups and downs in life. I got whatever I wished for… And I woke up!

So you're going to have to ask yourselves on simple question: Which one of us is speaking now?

I was an utterance in absentia. I was a forgotten word, uttered and mislaid long ago. I was the word that existed because there was another word that was my opposite, and without it I was nothing. I gained meaning only by acknowledging that possible other.Nida

Why do I feel like this is our destiny. There must be a reason why we have become our characters.