#fiction

Because I'm such a creative person, and I've always got my nose in a book, I suppose it was only a matter of time before non-fiction turned into fiction again. But I never consciously set out to become a writer and I never thought I'd be doing the things I'm doing today. ↗

— Paul Kane

#always #because #become #before #book

I sometimes wonder what would've happened if I'd entered the competition instead - I'd probably have come nowhere and given up on the whole fiction game. ↗

— Paul Kane

#competition #entered #fiction #game #given

And really the purpose of art - for me, fiction - is to alert, to indicate to stop, to say: Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment which you might have had, or might still have. ↗

— Jerzy Kosinski

#art #certain #fiction #had #indicate

I was attracted to science fiction because it was so wide open. I was able to do anything and there were no walls to hem you in and there was no human condition that you were stopped from examining. ↗

— Octavia Butler

#anything #attracted #because #condition #examining

For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction. ↗

— Lord Byron

#fiction #strange #stranger #than #truth

As man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, such men are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do not change their natures until they are converted into dust. ↗

— Charles W. Chesnutt

#converted #dust #fiction #into #life

I think Henry Miller has had huge influence not because he wrote about sex, but because the memoir or the nonfiction novel has become such a monumental force in American publishing, if not in literature. ↗

— Leslie Fiedler

#american #because #become #force #had

Inevitably, his vision verged toward the fantastic; he published a scattering of stories - most included in this volume - which appeared to conform to that genre at least to the degree that the fuller part of his vision could be seen as "mysteries." For Woolrich it all was fantastic; the clock in the tower, hand in the glove, out of control vehicle, errant gunshot which destroyed; whether destructive coincidence was masked in the "naturalistic" or the "incredible" was all pretty much the same to him. RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK, THE BRIDE WORE BLACK, NIGHTMARE are all great swollen dreams, turgid constructions of the night, obsession and grotesque outcome; to turn from these to the "fantastic" was not to turn at all. The work, as is usually the case with a major writer was perfectly formed, perfectly consistent, the vision leached into every area and pulled the book together. "Jane Brown's Body" is a suspense story. THE BRIDE WORE BLACK is science fiction. PHANTOM LADY is a gothic. RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK was a bildungsroman. It does not matter. ↗

— Barry N. Malzberg

#cornell-woolrich #fantastic #gothic #horror #noir

As you see, I do not treat the creation of fiction, that to say the invention and development of fantasies, as a form of abstract thought. I don't wish to deny the uses of the intellect, but sometimes one has the intuition that the intellect by itself will lead one nowhere. ↗

— J. M. Coetzee

#abstract thought #creation #deny #development #fantasies

From: The Crown of Telus She opened her eyes, saw the crown sitting on her bedside table, and wished that it was all a dream. The crown of Trist was nothing special. It had no gemstones, no gold or silver filigree; instead it was simple, a metal circlet with four points and some inlay around a scratched and dented band. “It’s a working man’s crown,” she remembered her father holding the symbol of power out to her when she younger. “See the inlay? Three moons, one for each of our gods, over an oak which represents the mighty forests of the north, a shock of wheat for the Plainsmen to the south, a ship for the Gheltes to the west, and a hashap flower for the spice in the east. Nothing more. We don’t need anymore.” Tears welled in her eyes. A working man’s crown. Nothing fancy or bejeweled, a symbol of the power that guides the land and cares for its people. This was going to be the first day she wore it as queen. ↗

— William Laws

#fantasy-scifi #magic #swords-and-sorcery #dreams