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982b4df Some of these things are true and some of them lies. But they are all good stories. story reading fiction books read stories Hilary Mantel
44410e2 If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again. fiction Daphne du Maurier
c003b02 Fiction is art and art is the triumph over chaos... to celebrate a world that lies spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream. fiction writing books inspirational on-fiction John Cheever
68beb08 Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice. prejudice fiction science Michael Crichton
ea2109a No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart. fiction nick-carraway drama F. Scott Fitzgerald
f03bc3b "Peeta opens his mouth for the first bite without hesitation. He swallows, then frowns slightly. "They're very sweet." "Yes they're sugar berries. My mother makes jam from them. Haven't you've ever had them before?" I say, poking the next spoonful in his mouth. "No," he says, almost puzzled. "But they taste familiar. Sugar berries?" "Well, you can't get them in the market much, they only grow wild," I say. Another mouthful goes down. Just one more to go. "They're sweet as syrup," he says, taking the last spoonful. "Syrup." His eyes widen as he realizes the truth. I clamp my hand over his mouth and nose hard, forcing him to swallow instead of spit. He tries to make himself vomit the stuff up, but it's too late, he's already losing consciousness. Even as he fades away, I can see in his eyes what I've done is unforgiveable. I sit back on my heels and look at him with a mixture of sadness and satisfaction. A stray berry stains his chin and I wipe it away. "Who can't lie, Peeta?" I say, even though he can't hear me." fiction Suzanne Collins
52ac8df Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable. fiction chains-of-events commonplaces-of-existence cross-purposes outre-results plannings stale strange-coincidences unprofitable on-fiction sherlock-holmes Arthur Conan Doyle
779db64 I can't go on, I'll go on. tragedy fiction humor tragic-comedy nihilism existentialism drama Samuel Beckett
f3a21d2 "After a moment, Wrath turned to John. "This is Lassiter, the fallen angel. One of the last times he was here on earth, there was a plague in central Europe-" "Okay, that was so not my fault-" "-which wiped out two-thirds of the human population." "I'd like to remind you that you don't like humans." "They smell bad when they're dead." "All you mortal types do." fiction romance fallen-angel paranormal-romance vampires J.R. Ward
0a0ac5c I've committed to nothing...and that's just suicide...by tiny, tiny increments. fiction personal-insight rob-gordon dark-humor Nick Hornby
c0a9cf3 A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth. fiction writing on-fiction stories Diane Setterfield
2940c7f I was glad my father was an eye-smiler. It meant he never gave me a fake smile because it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren't feeling twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go with it. So watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you but his eyes stay the same. It's sure to be a phony. fiction dahl danny-the-champion-of-the-world Roald Dahl
22581e5 One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream. The more accurate the map, the more it resembles the territory. The most accurate map possible would be the territory, and thus would be perfectly accurate and perfectly useless. The tale is the map that is the territory. You must remember this. fiction contemporary mythology Neil Gaiman
c6c7df5 So I learned two things that night, and the next day, from him: the perfection of a moment, and the fleeting nature of it. loss relationships fiction life love epiphany journey Margaret George
677213c I'm really not up for answering any questions that start with how, when, where, why or what. fiction alaska-young miles looking-for-alaska John Green
0e1d074 I knew from the moment I heard you, the moment I saw the gun and realized that this lovely, petit woman was the executioner, that you would never die waiting for me to save you - that you would save yourself. fiction romance executioner anita-blake jean-claude hunter vampire paranormal Laurell K. Hamilton
a115307 Neither novels or their readers benefit from any attempts to divine whether any facts hide inside a story. Such efforts attack the very idea that made-up stories can matter, which is sort of the foundational assumption of our species. fiction books on-fiction John Green
8d478cb Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. words literature reading fiction Virginia Woolf
6b9a0b9 You belong to all of us, and we belong to you. fiction new-adult Sarah J. Maas
7ddb92a As a girl, she had come to believe in the ideal man -- the prince or knight of her childhood stories. In the real world, however, men like that simply didn't exist. fiction romance reality message-in-a-bottle nicholas-sparks Nicholas Sparks
52b7ad3 When all the details fit in perfectly, something is probably wrong with the story. perfection fiction discovery writing overdetermination plot mystery Charles Baxter
bdefc8b "I feel ill," [Howl] announced. "I'm going to bed, where I may die." young-adult fiction humor Diana Wynne Jones
2f79abe The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In books the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they do, because everything works out in the end. They'll beat the bad guys and put things right and everything ends up cool. In real life, vacuum cleaners kill spiders. If you cross a busy road without looking, you get whacked by a car. If you fall from a tree, you break some bones. Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins. I just wanted to make that clear before I begun. fiction reality on-fiction Darren Shan
8534e78 Maybe weakness is a strength of a kind. young-adult fiction martin-kingsley van-alen-legacy blue-bloods Melissa de la Cruz
c4d6940 The great joy and honour of my life has been to know you. To call you my family. And I am grateful - more than I can possibly say - that I was given this time with you all fiction fantasy court-of-dreams rhysand new-adult rhys Sarah J. Maas
4db72bb Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do-- to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street. fiction writing good-writing Stephen King
78a0bae Try to find pleasure in the speed that you're not used to. Changing the way you do routine things allows a new person to grow inside of you. But when all is said and done, you're the one who must decide how you handle it. fiction spirituality inspirational Paulo Coelho
4b0f220 if something is there, you can only see it with your eyes open, but if it isn't there, you can see it just as well with your eyes closed. That's why imaginary things are often easier to see than real ones. fiction reality imagination fantasy humor imaginary illusions on-fiction Norton Juster
8a4ebc2 "Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different. And while we're on the subject, I'd like to say a few words about escapism. I hear the term bandied about as if it's a bad thing. As if "escapist" fiction is a cheap opiate used by the muddled and the foolish and the deluded, and the only fiction that is worthy, for adults or for children, is mimetic fiction, mirroring the worst of the world the reader finds herself in. If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn't you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with(and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real. As JRR Tolkien reminded us, the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers." reading fiction fantasy neil-gaiman escapism Neil Gaiman
a51a043 Well,' the Goddess said, 'your heart didn't heal straight the last time it broke. So we'll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time. young-adult fiction Jane Yolen
84485b6 "Why is everything always my decision?" I asked. Because you will not tolerate anything else." Oh, I remembered now. "Great", I whispered. - Anita to Jean-Claude" fiction romance anita-blake jean-claude hunter vampire paranormal Laurell K. Hamilton
fc21df4 I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her eyes, downing vodka and sobbing uncontrollably. "We can't heal you at Evergreen", the very somber voiceover said. "But we can help you to heal yourself." It had become our own running joke, applicable to almost anything fiction romance inspirational drama self-help Sarah Dessen
9ad91bc The Friday before winter break, my mom packed me an overnight bag and a few deadly weapons and took me to a new boarding school. fiction funny fantasy intense Rick Riordan
0358a63 If she spoke, she would tell him the truth: she was not okay at all, but horribly empty, now that she knew what it was like to be filled. fiction love truth jodi-picoult filled plain-truth say okay tell empty speak mystery drama novel Jodi Picoult
c02ea1b Rogerson," I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, "where would I find the pelagic zone? fiction romance inspirational drama Sarah Dessen
b2cd3a2 Riza: Without his Alchemy he's just... Jean: A little brat who swears a lot Maes: An arrogant pipsqueak Roy: Useless. Just useless Alphonse: Sorry big brother, I don't know how to add to that... Ed *starts to cry*: YOU'RE ALL PICKING ON ME!!! fiction science humor alchemist fullmetal Hiromu Arakawa
c950d5d I try to be a good cop. I try to be a good little soldier and follow orders up to a point. But in the end I'm not really a cop, or a soldier. I am a legally sanctioned murderer. I am the Executioner. fiction vampire supernatural urban-fantasy Laurell K. Hamilton
6a99f3f It's funny, but certain faces seem to go in and out of style. You look at old photographs and everybody has a certain look to them, almost as if they're related. Look at pictures from ten years later and you can see that there's a new kind of face starting to predominate, and that the old faces are fading away and vanishing, never to be seen again. time fiction photographs Alan Moore
953dace But man is a fickle and disreputable creature and perhaps, like a chess-player, is interested in the process of attaining his goal rather than the goal itself. fiction russian-literature russian Fyodor Dostoyevsky
13e9809 Any fact becomes important when it's connected to another. fiction fact connection Umberto Eco
c7ea542 Women and fiction remain, so far as I am concerned, unsolved problems. fiction women on-fiction problems women-writers gender Virginia Woolf
dd30055 The trouble with fiction," said John Rivers, "is that it makes too much sense. Reality never makes sense. fiction reality inspirational huxley Aldous Huxley
9d2c2cf But a slow, deeply satisfied smile came over him, and his breath quickened. 'So softly it starts,' he whispered. 'Foolishly clever and with an unsurvivable trust. It just saved your miserable life, that questionable show of thought, my itchy-witch.' Al's smile shifted, becoming lighter. 'And now you will live to possibly regret it. fiction rachel-morgan demons supernatural Kim Harrison
9528123 as soon as we renounce fiction and illusion, we lose reality itself; the moment we subtract fictions from reality, reality itself loses its discursive-logical consistency. fiction philosophy imaginary symbolic real ideology Slavoj Žižek
35c1d01 Edward smiled, I smiled, even Bernardo smiled. Olaf just looked sinister. fiction hunter vampire supernatural urban-fantasy Laurell K. Hamilton
12150a7 Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub? kids fiction fantasy bathtub silly hearing sound octopus nonsense Norton Juster
eddb843 Can't say I've ever been too fond of beginnings, myself. Messy little things. Give me a good ending anytime. You know where you are with an ending. fiction Neil Gaiman
be20a3c Your mother won a special reward," she told me, "because everyone had a head in her pictures. We all applauded. fiction romance inspirational drama Sarah Dessen
872a7a3 No, it's not fair, but what makes earth feel like Hell is our expectation that it should feel like Heaven. Earth is earth. Dead is dead. You'll find out for yourself soon enough. It won't help the situation for you to get all upset. fiction Chuck Palahniuk
58b864a "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." murder fiction express orient hercule poirot detective Agatha Christie
ac95af4 To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative -- the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time. escape reading fiction interpretation real-world narrative escapism storytelling Umberto Eco
20f8922 It touched me to be trusted with something terrible. dark fiction vlad-the-impaler european historian dracula moody historical vampire horror Elizabeth Kostova
dc2bc57 He had killed his way across the world; he had gone to war and back more times than he cared to remember. And despite it all, despite the rage and despair and ice he'd wrapped around his heart, he'd still found Aelin. Every horizon he'd gazed toward, unable and unwilling to rest during those centuries, every mountain and ocean he'd seen and wondered what lay beyond ... It had been her. It had been Aelin, the silent call of the mating bond driving him, even when he could not feel it. They'd walked this dark path together back to the light. He would not let the road end here. young-adult fiction throne-of-glass kingdom-of-ash sarah-j-maas Sarah J. Maas
238cf2c I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers. fiction humor rsas Ralph Ellison
ffd54e9 I looked at Micah, who shrugged. I looked at Rafael, who shook his head. Nice that none of us knew why he was undressing. fiction romance blake hunter micah vampire paranormal Laurell K. Hamilton
aae679a Help me give up my addiction to Hope. prayer fiction Chuck Palahniuk
4c2be6c Why does anything cling to something? Maybe they love wherever they're going so much that it's worth it. Maybe they'll keep coming back, until there's only one star left. Maybe that one star will make the trip forever, out of the hope that someday--if it keeps coming back often enough--another star will find it again. fiction fantasy velaris rhysand feyre rhys Sarah J. Maas
d1d97d0 Hope is something really tough and tenacious you have to give up. It's an addiction to break. fiction Chuck Palahniuk
fe91aca At the small table, sitting very upright, was one of the ugliest old ladies he had ever seen. It was an ugliness of distinction - it fascinated rather than repelled. murder fiction express orient hercule poirot detective Agatha Christie
12b5a43 "Evangeline," he sighed. "It ain't ever goan to be easy with you, is it?" young-adult fiction romance Kresley Cole
b4e6a40 Enemies can't break your spirit, only friends can. fiction friends Arundhati Roy
987e0de A person with autism lives in his own world, while a person with Asperger's lives in our world, in a way of his own choosing fiction sparks autism nicholas Nicholas Sparks
86c353a "Love"I'm in love with you," he said quietly. "Augustus,"I said. "I am," he said. He was staring at me, and I could see the corners of his eyes crinkling. "I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you." "Augustus," I said again, not knowing what else to say. It felt like everything was rising up in me, like I was drowning in this weirdly painful joy, but I couldn't say it back. I couldn't say anything back. I just looked at him and let him look at me until he nodded, lips pursed, and turned away, placing the side of his head against the window." fiction love john-green the-fault-in-our-stars John Green
766c380 This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature. Look at our parents--were they the stuff of Literature? At best, they might aspire to the condition of onlookers and bystanders, part of a social backdrop against which real, true, important things could happen. Like what? The things Literature was about: Love, sex, morality, friendship, happiness, suffering, betrayal, adultery, good and evil, heroes and villains, guilt and innocence, ambition, power, justice, revolution, war, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, the individual against society, success and failure, murder, suicide, death, God. sex literature fiction morality god life love Julian Barnes
d9b9019 When feeling came back, in a storm of color and force and sensation, the most you could do was hold on to the person beside you and hope you could weather it. Alex closed her eyes and expected the worst-but it wasn't a bad thing; it was just a different thing. A messier one, more complicated one. She hesitated, and then she kissed Patrick back, willing to concede that you might have to lose control before you could find what you'd been missing. fiction jodi-picoult Jodi Picoult
bacb7f4 If woman had no existence save in the fiction written by men, one would imagine her a person of the utmost importance (...); as great as a man, some think even greater. But this is woman in fiction. In fact, as points out [in his ], she was locked up, beaten and flung about the room. stereotypes woman equality fiction truth clichés greatness dignity importance hypocrisy respect gender Virginia Woolf
6f829e0 Literature differs from life in that life is amorphously full of detail, and rarely directs us toward it, wheras literature teaches us to notice. Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life. literature fiction james-wood James Wood
9908a4d What's broken is broken--and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I live...I'm too old to believe in such sentimentalities as clean slates and starting all over. fiction remember Margaret Mitchell
80d60dd I took one of my hands in the other, tried to imagine what it would feel like if it was another person's hand holding mine. There have been times where I felt that I might die of loneliness. fiction woman-fiction Gail Honeyman
f596190 Nothing makes you think you might need years of therapy like saying the word breasts in front of your mother. humour fiction funny dare-you-to new-release ryan-stone katie-mcgarry breasts ya Katie McGarry
325252e Who can know from the word goodbye what kind of parting is in store for us. fiction goodbye Arundhati Roy
f5437f8 The Countess was considerably younger than her husband. All of her clothes came from Paris (this was after Paris) and she had superb taste. (This was after taste too, but only just. And since it was such a new thing, and since the Countess was the only lady in all Florin to posses it, is it any wonder she was the leading hostess in the land?) fiction timelines taste William Goldman
f4458a4 Fictions are merely frozen dreams, linked images with some semblance of structure. They are not to be trusted, no more than the people who create them. fiction Neil Gaiman
f4a085d I want to keep you, till the end of days. fiction mystery J.D. Robb
8e94385 "I would like [my readers] to better understand human beings and human life as a result of having read [my] stories. I'd like them to feel that this was an experience that made things better for them and an experience that gave them hope. I think that the kind of things that we talk about at this conference -- fantasy very much so, science fiction, and even horror -- the message that we're sending is the reverse of the message sent by what is called "realistic fiction." (I happen to think that realistic fiction is not, in fact, realistic, but that's a side issue.) And what we are saying is that it doesn't have to be like this: things can be different. Our society can be changed. Maybe it's worse, maybe it's better. Maybe it's a higher civilization, maybe it's a barbaric civilization. But it doesn't have to be the way it is now. Things can change. And we're also saying things can change for you in your life. Look at the difference between Severian the apprentice and Severian the Autarch [in for example. The difference beteween Silk as an augur and Silk as calde [in fiction fantasy optimism hope science-fiction horror Gene Wolfe
482e72c To know you will be lonely is not the same as being lonely. fiction Peter Carey
49613af 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? fiction on-fiction Milan Kundera
fc52d0f Very young children love and demand stories, and can understand complex matters presented as stories, when their powers of comprehending general concepts, paradigms, are almost nonexistent. fiction narrative storytelling stories Oliver Sacks
1229602 Ah, relationships. If he was lucky, Luke thought, he would never have another one. fiction lgbt horror Poppy Z. Brite
be4f24c "But you have such dimples," said Anne, smiling affectionately into the pretty, vivacious face so near her own. "Lovely dimples, like little dents in cream. I have given up all hope of dimples. My dimple-dream will never come true; but so many of my dreams have that I mustn't complain. Am I all ready now?" fiction dimples anne-shirley l-m-montgomery L.M. Montgomery
3abfd33 But if I die without trying again, I'm a coward. I don't mind having regrets about stuff I've done. It's the regrets about stuff I haven't done that bother me. fiction lgbt horror Poppy Z. Brite
20b164f You know when I told you the joke about how a friend will help you move, but a real friend will help you move a body? I was only kidding. brad-thor scot-harvath fiction thriller Brad Thor
ed499bb And what was I if not death's ghostwriter? fiction lgbt horror Poppy Z. Brite
f362f53 We have inhabited both the actual and the imaginary realms for a long time. But we don't live in either place the way our parents or ancestors did. Enchantment alters with age, and with the age. We know a dozen Arthurs now, all of them true. The Shire changed irrevocably even in Bilbo's lifetime. Don Quixote went riding out to Argentina and met Jorge Luis Borges there. Plus c'est la meme chose, plus ca change. fiction imagination Ursula K. Le Guin
71c136e Cery: So, Hem, tell me why I shouldn't see how many holes I need to make before you start leaking money? magic fiction humor Trudi Canavan
d03bb8f "God, there must be a meaning. Fiercely he was certain that there must be a meaning. Surely, while we live we are not lost. war fiction death hope last-lines the-long-green-shore wwii John Hepworth
4a3f558 She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through which indeed there curled the blue river of truth. fiction truth knowledge Henry James
9787326 I'm not smarter than you, I'm more knowledgeable than you, and that's only because I'm older than you. Parents are always more knowledgeable than their children, and children are always smarter than their parents. fiction parents Jonathan Safran Foer
caadcb8 Grimes believed in what he did, with no doubts. Though he was older than me by over a decade, I suddenly felt old. Some things mark your soul, not in years but in blood and pain and selling off parts of yourself to get the bad guys, until you finally look in the mirror and aren't sure which side you're on anymore. There comes a point when having a badge doesn't make you the good guy, it just makes you one of the guys. I needed to be one of the good guys, or what the hell was I doing? fiction vampire supernatural Laurell K. Hamilton
6e2cccb There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies - which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world - what I want to forget. fiction marlow Joseph Conrad
d2c9deb In real life I do violence, but for psychic stuff I do other things better. fiction vampire supernatural urban-fantasy Laurell K. Hamilton
05fbea2 Few humans see fairies or hear their music, but many find fairy rings of dark grass, scattered with toadstools, left by their dancing feet. fiction humor Judy Allen
3c26abc Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived. fiction bestselling hercule agatha-christie christie poirot hercule-poirot mystery suspense Agatha Christie
b99c19f Sharpen your heart. young-adult dark fiction fantasy hollow-hall elfham prince-cardan jude faerie Holly Black
2e49795 He had been held to her by a beautiful thread which it pained him to spoil by breaking, rather than by a chain he could not break. fiction romance far-from-the-madding-crowd gabriel-oak classic Thomas Hardy
d0ecf42 I told you in the course of this paper that Shakespeare had a sister; but do not look for her in 's of the poet. She died young--alas, she never wrote a word. She lies buried where the omnibuses now stop, opposite the Elephant and Castle. Now my belief is that this poet who never wrote a word and was buried at the crossroads still lives. She lives in you and in me, and in many other women who are not here tonight, for they are washing up the dishes and putting the children to bed. But she lives; for great poets do not die; they are continuing presences; they need only the opportunity to walk among us in the flesh. opportunities equality feminism self-determination fiction poetry women dreams empowerment dignity social-norms women-writers gender Virginia Woolf
97d180d Katherine of Aragon was speaking out for the women of the country, for the good wives who should not be put aside just because their husbands had taken a fancy to another, for the women who walked the hard road between kitchen, bedroom, church and childbirth. For the women who deserved more than their husband's whim. fiction katherine henry-viii historical-fiction Philippa Gregory
fdbd811 When the gap between the world of the city and the world my grandfather had presented to me as right and good became too wide and depressing to tolerate, I'd turn to my other great love, which was pulp adventure fiction. Despite the fact that [he] would have had nothing but scorn and loathing for all of those violent and garish magazines, there was a sort of prevailing morality in them that I'm sure he would have responded to. The world of Doc Savage and The Shadow was one of absolute values, where what was good was never in the slightest doubt and where what was evil inevitably suffered some fitting punishment. The notion of good and justice espoused by Lamont Cranston with his slouch hat and blazing automatics seemed a long way from that of the fierce and taciturn old man I remembered sitting up alone into the Montana night with no company save his bible, but I can't help feeling that if the two had ever met they'd have found something to talk about. For my part, all those brilliant and resourceful sleuths and heroes offered a glimpse of a perfect world where morality worked the way it was to. Nobody in Doc Savage's world ever killed themselves except thwarted kamikaze assassins or enemy spies with cyanide capsules. Which world would you rather live in, if you had the choice? fiction morality pulp-fiction Alan Moore
62774ec But to be perfectly frank, this childish idea that the author of a novel has some special insight into the characters in the novel...it's ridiculous. That novel was composed of scratches on a page, dear. The characters inhabiting it have no life outside of those scratches. What happened to them? They all ceased to exist the moment the novel ended. fiction imagination intentional-fallcy ontology John Green
5b59ef9 Nanny Ogg was an attractive lady, which is not the same as being beautiful. She fascinated Casanunda. She was an incredibly comfortable person to be around, partly because she had a mind so broad it could accommodate three football fields and a bowling alley. humour fiction women fantasy Terry Pratchett
ea5ce88 Fiction gives us empathy: It puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gift of seeing through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over. fiction Ray Bradbury
03d1570 Whoever controls the king, controls the kingdom young-adult dark fiction enemies dangerous prince-cardan jude faerie Holly Black
9ec904f A deus ex machina will never appear in real life so you best make other arrangements. literature fiction reality life plot-device real-life plot plan Marisha Pessl
e3557a4 I remember always being baffled by other children. I would be at a birthday party and watch the other kids giggling and making faces, and I would try to do that, too, but I wouldn't understand . I would site there with the tight elastic thread of the birthday hat parting the pudge of my underchin, with the grainy frosting of the cake bluing my teeth, and I would try to figure out why it was fun. fiction not-fitting-in Gillian Flynn
2bc6fff Once evil is individualized, becoming part of everyday life, the way of resisting it also becomes individual. How does the soul survive? is the essential question. And the response is: through love and imagination. fiction imagination love Azar Nafisi
133c854 "Well, come back and have tea with us," saidMoon-Face. "Silky's got some Pop Biscuits -andI've made some Google Buns. I don't often makethem-and I tell you they're a treat!" fiction humor Enid Blyton
48aad59 Did you ever think much about jobs? I mean, some of the jobs people land in? You see a guy giving haircuts to dogs, or maybe going along the curb with a shovel, scooping up horse manure. And you think, now why is the silly bastard doing that? He looks fairly bright, about as bright as anyone else. Why the hell does he do that for living? You kind grin and look down your nose at him. You think he's nuts, know what I mean, or he doesn't have any ambition. And then you take a good look at yourself, and you stop wondering about the other guy... You've got all your hands and feet. Your health is okay, and you make a nice appearance, and ambition-man! You've got it. You're young, I guess: you'd call thirty young, and you're strong. You don't have much education, but you've got more than plenty of other people who go to the top. And yet with all that, with all you've had to do with this is as far you've got And something tellys you, you're not going much farther if any. And there is nothing to be done about it now, of course, but you can't stop hoping. You can't stop wondering... ...Maybe you had too much ambition. Maybe that was the trouble. You couldn't see yourself spending forty years moving from office boy to president. So you signed on with a circulation crew; you worked the magazines from one coast to another. And then you ran across a little brush deal-it sounded nice, anyway. And you worked that until you found something better, something that looked better. And you moved from that something to another something. Coffee-and-tea premiums, dinnerware, penny-a-day insurance, photo coupons, cemetery lots, hosiery, extract, and God knows what all. You begged for the charities, You bought the old gold. You went back to the magazines and the brushes and the coffee and tea. You made good money, a couple of hundred a week sometimes. But when you averaged it up, the good weeks with the bad, it wasn't so good. Fifty or sixty a week, maybe seventy. More than you could make, probably, behind agas pump or a soda fountain. But you had to knock yourself out to do it, and you were standing stil. You were still there at the starting place. And you weren't a kid any more. So you come to this town, and you see this ad. Man for outside sales and collections. Good deal for hard worker. And you think maybe this is it. This sounds like a right town. So you take the job, and you settle down in the town. And, of course, neither one of 'em is right, they're just like all the others. The job stinks. The town stinks. You stink. And there's not a goddamned thing you can do about it. All you can do is go on like this other guys go on. The guy giving haircuts to dogs, and the guy sweeping up horse manute Hating it. Hating yourself. And hoping. fiction noir Jim Thompson
a2614c4 I sat down in a booth, and the waitress shoved a menu in front of me. There wasn't anything on it that sounded good, and anyway, one look at her and my stomach turned flipflops... Every goddamned restaurant I go to, it's always the same way... They'll have some old bag on the payroll -- I figure they keep her locked up in the mop closet until they see me coming. And they'll doll her up in the dirtiest goddamned apron they can find and smear that crappy red polish all over her fingernails, and everything about her is smeary and sloppy and smelly. And she's the dame that always waits on me. fiction noir Jim Thompson
6e4caa9 Reading things that are relevant to the facts of your life is of limited value. The facts are, after all, only the facts, and the yearning passionate part of you will not be met there. That is why reading ourselves as a fiction as well as fact is so liberating. The wider we read the freer we become. reading fiction liberation value Jeanette Winterson
01ad326 Great fiction shows us not how to conduct our behavior but how to feel. Eventually, it may show us how to face our feelings and face our actions and to have new inklings about what they mean. A good novel of any year can initiate us into our own new experience. fiction Eudora Welty
3e5a84d The cry that 'fantasy is escapist' compared to the novel is only an echo of the older cry that novels are 'escapist' compared with biography, and to both cries one should make the same answer: that freedom to invent outweighs loyalty to mere happenstance, the accidents of history; and good readers should know how to filter a general applicability from a particular story. tolkien fiction writing tom-shippey Tom Shippey
e893e0c He told himself she wasn't really such a bad person, she was just a pest, she was sticky, there was something misplaced in her make-up, something that kept her from fading clear of people when they wanted to be in the clear. fiction women david-goodis pulp noir David Goodis
11b53ca But now she could not bear the way she sounded. She was not a person anyone could love. ... And thus fled to her room. There she wept, bitterly, an ugly sound punctuated by great gulps. She could not stop herself. She could hear his footsteps in the passage outside. He walked up and down, up and down. 'Come in,' she prayed. 'Oh dearest, do come in.' But he did not come in. He would not come in. This was the man she had practically contracted to give away her fortune to. He offered to marry her as a favour and then he would not even come into her room. Later, she could smell him make himself a sweet pancake for his lunch. She thought this a childish thing to eat, and selfish, too. If he were a gentleman he would now come to her room and save her from the prison her foolishness had made for her. He did not come. She heard him pacing in his room. fiction Peter Carey
b2396b8 In the forest you may find yourself lost, without companions. You may come to a river which is not on a map. You may lose sight of your quarry, and forget why you are there. You may meet a dwarf, or the living Christ, or an old enemy of yours; or a new enemy, one you do not know until you see his face appear between the rustling leaves, and see the glint of his dagger. You may find a woman asleep in a bower of leaves. For a moment, before you don't recognise her, you will think she is someone you know. fiction the-tudors wolf-hall thomas-cromwell historical-fiction england Hilary Mantel
fe1b286 Is it possible that the Pentateuch could not have been written by uninspired men? that the assistance of God was necessary to produce these books? Is it possible that ascertained the mechanical principles of 'Virtual Velocity,' the laws of falling bodies and of all motion; that ascertained the true position of the earth and accounted for all celestial phenomena; that discovered his three laws--discoveries of such importance that the 8th of May, 1618, may be called the birth-day of modern science; that gave to the world the Method of Fluxions, the Theory of Universal Gravitation, and the Decomposition of Light; that , , , and , almost completed the science of mathematics; that all the discoveries in optics, hydrostatics, pneumatics and chemistry, the experiments, discoveries, and inventions of , , and , of , and and of all the pioneers of progress--that all this was accomplished by uninspired men, while the writer of the Pentateuch was directed and inspired by an infinite God? Is it possible that the codes of China, India, Egypt, Greece and Rome were made by man, and that the laws recorded in the Pentateuch were alone given by God? Is it possible that and , , and , and , and all the poets of the world, and all their wondrous tragedies and songs are but the work of men, while no intelligence except the infinite God could be the author of the Pentateuch? Is it possible that of all the books that crowd the libraries of the world, the books of science, fiction, history and song, that all save only one, have been produced by man? Is it possible that of all these, the bible only is the work of God? discoveries progress tragedy libraries poets shakespeare india light writer fiction books inspiration bible science songs intelligence alessandro-volta benjamin-franklin beranger bonaventura-cavalieri bonaventura-francesco-cavalieri burns cavalieri chemistry china copernicus descartes euclid experiments franklin fulton galileo galileo-galilei galvani gottfried-leibniz gottfried-von-leibniz gottfried-wilhelm-leibniz gottfried-wilhelm-von-leibniz greece hydrostatics inventions isaac-newton james-watt johann-von-goethe johannes-kepler kepler laws-of-motion leibniz luigi-aloisio-galvani luigi-galvani math mathematics morse newton nicolaus-copernicus optics pentateuch pierre-jean-de-béranger pioneers pneumatics rene-descartes richard-trevithick robert-burns robert-fulton rome samuel-finley-breese-morse samuel-morse schiller the-bible theory-of-gravity theory-of-universal-gravitation trevethick volta watt Æschylus johann-wolfgang-von-goethe goethe egypt william-shakespeare Robert G. Ingersoll
fca6e56 Then it doesn't matter which way you walk...-so long as I get somewhere. fiction white-queen bunny Lewis Carroll
731c415 "You can't kill an American Citizen without benefit of a trial." "I can if you're on the list, traitor." "LIST? What list? What the hell are you talking about?" BLACK LIST, July 24" black-list brad-thor fiction Brad Thor
1b7eac1 "It is usually assumed that children are the natural or the specially appropriate audience for fairy-stories. In describing a fairy-story which they think adults might possibly read for their own entertainment, reviewers frequently indulge in such waggeries as: "this book is for children from the ages of six to sixty." But I have never yet seen the puff of a new motor-model that began thus: "this toy will amuse infants from seventeen to seventy"; though that to my mind would be much more appropriate. Is there any essential connexion between children and fairy-stories? Is there any call for comment, if an adult reads them for himself? Reads them as tales, that is, not studies them as curios. Adults are allowed to collect and study anything, even old theatre programmes or paper bags." fiction J.R.R. Tolkien
9587212 "We want to fight." "And I want J.K. Rowling to keep writing in the Potterverse, but I know that's never going to happen," I said blithely." fiction fantasy humor fallen-legion laura-kreitzer potterverse timeless-series j-k-rowling paranormal Laura Kreitzer
7cbebd9 "[Referring to passage by Alice Munro] Finally, the passage contradicts a form of bad advice often given young writers -- namely, that the job of the author is to show, not tell. Needless to say, many great novelists combine "dramatic" showing with long sections of the flat-out authorial narration that is, I guess, what is meant by telling. And the warning against telling leads to a confusion that causes novice writers to think that everything should be acted out -- don't tell us a character is happy, show us how she screams "yay" and jumps up and down for joy -- when in fact the responsibility of showing should be assumed by the energetic and specific use of language." fiction writing show-don-t-tell language Francine Prose
fc68261 And if we can imagine the art of fiction come alive and standing in our midst, she would undoubtedly bid us break her and bully her, as well as honour and love her, for so her youth is renewed and her sovereignty assured. fiction virginia-woolf modern-fiction Virginia Woolf
8c9e422 He was tender with her. He wiped her eyelids with his handkerchief, not noticing how soiled it was. It was stained with ink, crumpled, stuck together. Her lids were large and tender and the handkerchief was stiff, not nearly soft enough. He moistened a corner in his mouth. He was painfully aware of the private softness of her skin, of how the eyes trembled beneath their coverings. He dried the tears with an affection, a particularity, that had never been exercised before. It was a demonstration of 'nature.' He was a birth-wet foal rising to his feet. fiction Peter Carey
682f830 (From the Author Note at the beginning of the book.) Dorothy L. Sayers used to say that mystery stories were the only moral fiction of the modern world--because in a mystery, you were guaranteed to see that the bad got punished, the good got rewarded and in the end all was made right. I'd like to think that fantasy does the same thing. It reminds us that , and maybe if we all put our minds to it a little more, . The good will be rewarded. The bad will be punished. Sins will be forgiven. And they will live happily ever after. fiction morality mystery Mercedes Lackey
0274f43 Art, though, is never the voice of a country; it is an even more precious thing, the voice of the individual, doing its best to speak, not comfort of any sort, but truth. And the art that speaks it most unmistakably, most directly, most variously, most fully, is fiction; in particular, the novel. fiction writing novels Eudora Welty
9c1e41e Human life is fiction's only theme. fiction writing Eudora Welty
d064e33 While my chosen form of story-writing is obviously a special and perhaps a narrow one, it is none the less a persistent and permanent type of expression, as old as literature itself. There will always be a certain small percentage of persons who feel a burning curiosity about unknown outer space, and a burning desire to escape from the prison-house of the known and the real into those enchanted lands of incredible adventure and infinite possibilities which dreams open up to us, and which things like deep woods, fantastic urban towers, and flaming sunsets momentarily suggest. fiction wonder fantasy weird-fiction lovecraft H.P. Lovecraft
accc7bc But Mother, I don't want to go. It's just that...I have to. I can't spend the rest of my life hiding in the attic. [...] I don't want to be a burden[...]I want to do something with my life. Figure out ways to help other third kids. Make--make a difference in the world. fiction distopia science-fiction Margaret Peterson Haddix
1dd2cb4 I'd always had a guilty preference for fiction. Since I seemed now to be living fiction, this proved to have been an entirely reasonable choice. fiction life Robin McKinley
bb1d6bf The hard truths are the ones to hold tight. - Old Bear war fiction politics a-song-of-ice-and-fire george-rr-martin grimdark middle-ages epic-fantasy George R.R. Martin
556693b No two readers can or will ever read the same book, because the reader builds the book in collaboration with the author. reading fiction Neil Gaiman
a21eaab ..giving power to negative thoughts or fears was bringing ideas to life in physical world,idea in mind became emotion in heart,emotion turned into words spoken,written,painted,strummed across guitar strings,or vibrantly held note by Tibetan singing bowl, thoughts affected physical world. photography fiction emotion poetry auras negative-thoughts physical-world power-of-ideas tibetan-singing-bowl chakras christina-westover energy-manipulation telepathy san-francisco personal-power guitar power-of-thoughts beatnik Christina Westover
c155797 "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." fiction geisha memoirs japan Arthur Golden
f966734 The book was blunt and had an honesty about it, whereas the movie was just a beautiful lie. fiction writing Bret Easton Ellis
3414688 She was like a landscape you see from the train, and you want to stop just there. fiction script existentialism play fear-of-death psychology Graham Greene
35ecc5f Fictions exist because of this fact. Because we have only one life, and our desires and fantasies demand a thousand lives. Because the abyss between what we are and what we would like to be has to be bridged somehow. That was why fictions were born: so that, through living this vicarious, transient, precarious, but also passionate and fascinating life that fiction transports us to, we can incorporate the impossible into the possible and our existence can be both reality and unreality, history and fable, concrete life and marvellous adventure. words literature reading fiction Mario Vargas Llosa
be00c13 Once out of the mailroom, I began to learn more about fear. As soon as fear begins to ascend, anatomically, from the pit of the stomach to the throat and brain, from fear of violence to the more nameless kind, you come to believe you are part of a horrible experiment. I learned to distrust those superiors who encouraged independent thinking. When you gave it to them, they returned it in the form of terror, for they knew that ideas, only that, could hasten their obsolescence. Management asked for new ideas all the time; memos circulated down the echelons, requesting bold and challenging concepts. But I learned that new ideas could finish you unless you wrapped them in a plastic bag. I learned that most of the secretaries were more intelligent than most of the executives and that the executive secretaries were to be feared more than anyone. I learned what closed doors meant and that friendship was not negotiable currency and how important it was to lie even when there was no need to lie. Words and meanings were at odds. Words did not say what was being said nor even its reverse. I learned to speak a new language and soon mastered the special elements of that tongue. fiction organization Don DeLillo
b9c8a5d Push away the past, that vessel in which all emotions curdle to regret. fiction immigrant-experience indian-authors wisdom-quotes mothers-and-daughters novel Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
2d21c7b I have closed my study door on the world and shut myself away with people of my imagination. For nearly sixty years I have eavesdropped with impunity on the lives of people who do not exist. I have peeped shamelessly into hearts and bathroom closets. I have leaned over shoulders to follow the movements of quills as they write love letters, wills and confessions. I have watched as lovers love, murderers murder and childern play their make-believe. Prisons and brothels have opened their doors to me; galleons and camel trains have transported me across sea and sand; centuries and continents have fallen away at my bidding. I have spied upon the misdeeds of the mighty and witnessed the nobility of the meek. I have bent so low over sleepers in their beds that they might have felt my breath on their faces. I have seen their dreams. fiction writing Diane Setterfield
4c368a7 The moderns say we must not punish heretics. My only doubt is whether we have the right to punish anybody else. fiction heresy G.K. Chesterton
e96adbe They placed their bets with such self righteous bravado, but I'm the one who lost. fiction Chuck Palahniuk
6d86769 Atmosphere, not action, is the great desideratum of weird fiction. Indeed, all that a wonder story can ever be is a vivid picture of a certain type of human mood. The moment it tries to be anything else it becomes cheap, puerile, and unconvincing. Prime emphasis should be given to subtle suggestion - imperceptible hints and touches of selective associative detail which express shadings of mood and build up a vague illusion of the strange reality of the unreal. Avoid bald catalogues of incredible happenings which can have no substance or meaning apart from a sustaining cloud of colour and symbolism. fiction weird-fiction subtlety H.P. Lovecraft
63007a9 Then the sun came up and shook the night chill out of the air the way you'd shake a rug. fiction john-steinbeck John Steinbeck
79cec82 Grayson: Fiction is just a lie anyway. Brianna: But it's not - it's a different kind of truth - it would be your truth at the time of the writing, wouldn't it? fiction writing author-quotes fictional fictional-truth authors fiction-writing Nora Roberts
1b6d740 If he's like any other man I've ever met, it's not my smile he's going to be looking at. brad-thor scot-harvath men fiction humor life thriller Brad Thor
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