Sayings about Fiction
Truth is stranger than fiction. ~ Traditional Proverb
There are only two ways to reach the truth — with literature and agriculture. ~ Chinese Proverb
Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. ~ African Proverb
Every tale can be told in a different way. ~ Greek Proverbs
Who came back from the grave and told the story? ~ Tunisian Proverbs
He who lives on illusions, dies of disillusion. ~ South American Proverb
Quotations about Fiction
Fiction is no longer a mere amusement; but transcendent genius, accommodating itself to the character of the age, has seized upon this province of literature, and turned fiction from a toy into a mighty engine. ~ William Ellery Channing
The first sentence of every novel should be: ”Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.” Meander if you want to get to town. ~ Michael Ondaatje
The really great novel tends to be the exact negative of its author’s life. ~ Andre Maurois
Do what you will, this world’s a fiction and is made up of contradiction. ~ William Blake
There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there’s only narrative. ~ E. L. Doctorow
Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction has to be convincing, and life doesn’t. ~ Neil Gaiman
But I hate things all fiction… there should always be some foundation of fact for the most airy fabric — and pure invention is but the talent of a liar.~ Lord Byron
Truth and fiction are so aptly mixed that all seems uniform and of a piece. ~ Wentworth Dillon
The truth is always less interesting than the fiction. ~ Jean-Pierre Dardenne
Imagination is the key to my lyrics. The rest is painted with a little science fiction. ~ Jimi Hendrix
If science fiction is the mythology of modern technology, then its myth is tragic. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin
Those who relish the study of character may profit by the reading of good works of fiction, the product of well-established authors. ~ Archbishop Richard Whately
The novel does not seek to establish a privileged language but it insists upon the freedom to portray and analyze the struggle between the different contestants for such privileges. ~ Salman Rushdie
Fiction is most powerful when it contains most truth; and there is little truth we get so true as that which we find in fiction. ~ Josiah Gilbert Holland
All great novels, all true novels, are bisexual. ~ Milan Kundera
An old novel has a history of its own. ~ Alexander Smith
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means. ~ Oscar Wilde
If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely. ~ Sir Arthur Helps
It is to be believed because it is absurd. ~ Quintus Septimus Tertullianus
Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction. ~ Lord Byron
Tales that have the rime of age. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Novels as dull as dishwater, with the grease of random sentiments floating on top. ~ Italo Calvino
A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction. ~ Oscar Wilde
A play is fiction – and fiction is fact distilled into truth. ~ Edward Albee
By its very nature, the novel indicates that we are becoming. There is no final solution. There is no last word. ~ Carlos Fuentes
When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him. ~ Luigi Pirandello
Fiction is not imagination. It is what anticipates imagination by giving it the form of reality. ~ Jean Baudrillard
Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art. ~ Susan Sontag
Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence — a lot passes you by — simply because your attention is otherwise diverted. ~ Anita Brookner
Fiction may be said to be the caricature of history. ~ Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton
It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. ~ Mark Twain
Where everything is possible miracles become commonplace, but the familiar ceases to be self-evident. ~ Eric Hoffer
By measuring individual human worth, the novelist reveals the full enormity of the State’s crime when it sets out to crush that individuality. ~ Ian McEwan
Man is a poetical animal, and delights in fiction. ~ William Hazlitt
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t. ~ Mark Twain
Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. ~ Mark Twain
It’s with bad sentiments that one makes good novels. ~ Aldous Huxley
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. ~ Mark Twain
All that non-fiction can do is answer questions. It’s fiction’s business to ask them. ~ Richard Hughes
Fiction gives us a second chance that life denies us. ~ Paul Theroux
God is a fiction invented by people so they do not have to face the reality of their condition. ~ Michel Onfray
Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fiction is of the essence of poetry as well as of painting; there is a resemblance in one of human bodies, things, and actions which are not real, and in the other of a true story by fiction. ~ John Dryden
If you write fiction you are, in a sense, corrupted. There’s a tremendous corruptibility for the fiction writer because you’re dealing mainly with sex and violence. These remain the basic themes, they’re the basic themes of Shakespeare whether you like it or not. ~ Anthony Burgess
Science Fiction is not just about the future of space ships travelling to other planets, it is fiction based on science and I am using science as my basis for my fiction, but it’s the science of prehistory – palaeontology and archaeology – rather than astronomy or physics. ~ Jean M. Auel
I have often maintained that fiction may be much more instructive than real history. ~ John Foster
Wondrous strong, are the spells of fiction. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. ~ Tom Clancy
Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of Twentieth Century. ~ J. G. Ballard
Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties. ~ John Irving
Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can’t talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful. ~ Philip K. Dick
The purpose of a work of fiction is to appeal to the lingering after-effects in the reader’s mind as differing from, say, the purpose of oratory or philosophy which respectively leave people in a fighting or thoughtful mood. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
Every novel is a debtor to Homer. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Space or science fiction has become a dialect for our time. ~ Doris Lessing
Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t. ~ Mark Twain
Fiction is the truth inside the lie. ~ Stephen King
Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry. ~ William Golding
One of the nice things about science fiction is that it lets us carry out thought experiments. ~ Rudy Rucker
Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not. ~ Isaac Asimov
The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.~ Henry James
Novels are to love as fairy tales to dreams. ~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Fiction is the microscope of truth. ~ Alphonse de Lamartine
One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life. ~ Henry Miller
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