#fiction

Fiction, at the point of development at which it has arrived, demands from the writer a spirit of scrupulous abnegation.The only legitimate of all the irreconcilable antagonisms that make our life so enigmatic, so burdensome, so fascinating, so dangerous--so full of hope. They exist! And this is the only fundamental truth of fiction. ↗

— Joseph Conrad

#fiction #literary-theories #life

Reading yourself as a fiction as well as a fact is the only way to keep the narrative open - the only way to stop the story from running away under its own momentum, often towards an ending no one wants. ↗

— Jeanette Winterson

#end #fiction #life #reading #stories

I swing my arms to loosen myself up. Place my fists on my hips. then drop them to my sides. Saliva's filling my mouth at a ridiculous rate and i feel vomit at the back of my throat. I swallow hard and open my lips so I can get the stupid line out and go hide in the woods and-that's when i start crying. ↗

— Suzanne Collins

#dystopia-fiction #paintings #teen-fiction #teen

Everything I know, I know because of love. ↗

— Leo Tolstoy

#love #love

Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel. This is how you lose her. ↗

— Junot Díaz

#essays #fiction #junot #literature #love

Lips to lips, mouth to mouth, Comes the speaker of the shrouds, Suck in the spirit, speak the words, Let secrets of the dead be heard. ↗

— Yasmine Galenorn

#dragon #love #paranormal #paranormal-fiction #paranormal-romance

Little Jane's love would have been my best reward, without it, my heart is broken. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#love

The masses-I love em-they rush for red lights, risking everything to capture a few seconds, only to get home and waste their lives. ↗

— Arthur Nersesian

#love

I am not going to get into it myself, except to say (1) if I am writing "boy fiction," who are all those boys with breasts who keep turning up by the hundreds at my signings and readings? and (2) thank you, geek girls! I love you all. ↗

— George R.R. Martin

#love

I’ve known her long enough to know that this was purely intentional.” He peered sideways at me, judging my reaction. “I like her just fine, but you should watch yourself around her. Tennyson is given to obsession, and her obsessions tend to run toward trouble. It’s kind of a Wyoming thing to push the whole ‘Wild West’ routine to its limits. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#glass-girl #laura-anderson-kurk #love #relationships #romance