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...

The dominoes of fate are falling down as we are speaking, and Ferriar knows what will happen when the last one crashes down.

Yo, I’m in position. Ready when you is.”Gareth cringed while crossing the wide concourse, checking both directions. The giant hallway was the main drag of a ghost town, its only residents a solitary custodian sweeping...

Literature is a virus.

Writing a novel is agony.

I had a dream about you. I thought together we could change the world, but you said you’d rather change the TV channel. But you were all talk, because you never even did that. So...

The entertainment medium of film is particularly tuned to the present imaginations of people at large. A lot of fiction is intensely nostalgic.

Hard to hear, hard to understand, and hard to work with.

Why not?

It was as if-this is something I thought of only later, of course-she was gently peeling bcd one layer after another hat covered a person’s heart, a very sensual feeling.

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...

I didn’t write any fiction until I was past thirty.

When you walk,go different roads that take you nowhere,and see your world.

I’ve become remarkably good at blocking impossibly bizarre happenings from my consciousness. Denial can be a beautiful thing.

Dear family,I am drafting a new laundry protocol for better and more considerate usage of the washing machine

Funny how much we all suffer trying to spare others a bit of pain.

My conception of a novel is that it ought to be a personal struggle, a direct and total engagement with the author’s story of his or her own life. This conception, again, I take from...

We liked to believe there is an alternate world, a better world, populated entirely by characters created by the yearnings of humanity–governing and inspiring themselves with all the lucidity wit which we rendered them.

Books do pretend …but squeezed in between is even more that is true—without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see?

The novel is perhaps the highest art form because it so closely resembles life: it is about human relationships. It’s technique, page by page, resembles our technique of living day by day–a way of relating.

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...

There’s something in there,” Matt said. “Something alive. It punched me.””Punched you?” Baldwin’s face screwed up. “Are you sure a bat didn’t fly into you? I bet there are a few in there.”Matt rubbed his...

The only way to build a fan base is to have a lot of material out there for readers to find. You can’t manufacture a fan base. You create it, one story at a time.

Man may deceive his fellow-men, deception may follow deception, and the children of the wicked one may have power to seduce the foolish and untaught, till naught but fiction feeds the many, and the fruit...

What do you insolent merfolks want with me now? I swear I haven’t eaten any of your children.”-Ursula

Heavy is the head that holds the pen of creation. We construct these characters from nothing, molding them from our imaginations. We give them hopes and dreams and unique personalities until they feel so real...

An exceptional woman with all the desired qualities exists only in a man’s imagination.

Because beautiful things never last. Not roses nor snow… And not fireworks, either

How you spend your time when you are not working or studying says everything about who you are and what is motivating your life.

The black bird cocked its head to one side, and then said, in a voice like stones being struck, ‘You shadow man.”I’m Shadow,’ said Shadow. The bird hopped up onto the fawn’s rump, raised its...

Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.

Is there anything more plausible than a second hand? And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability. Some emotions speed it up, others slow it down; occasionally, it...

Come on, it’s an American tradition. Apple soup? Mom’s homemade chicken pie?’ She chuckled in spite of herself, then winced. ‘It’s apple pie and Mom’s homemade chicken soup. But you didn’t do badly, for a...

If you find that you’re going through hell, keep moving. You will get to the end eventually.

He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a featherhat, walking on his hind legs.

Confession is good for the soul even after the soul has been claimed” (p. 381).

Mankind has a mandate to care for the earth and all that is within it, especially the animals, and an animal should never be placed in a position where he needs to be concerned about...

Ô, wine!, the truth-serum so potent that all those who wish to live happy lives should abstain from drinking it entirely!… except of course when they are alone.

Fiction is overrated, Fly. We’ve discussed this. In the time it takes those novelist fuckers to contemplate a few poetic passages, a thousand kids die from malnutrition. Immediacy, man, that’s what counts.

Sarucha (age 8): “Look, down there, I recognize it, ciudad de Jerusalén (the city of Jerusalem)! Jerusalén!, Jerusalén!” she exclaimed.

The times have changed and now the story is old, but yet it all remains the same, a victim in the cold.

If freedom is free and none need worry, then what blood drops for thee?

You know, one of the interesting things you find about writing fiction is that any fiction you write has to be political. Otherwise, it goes into the realm of fantasy. So like, if you write...

Of all God’s creatures, only man kills with malice. Only man kills out of vengeance.

As we travel in time and on Equator, we will find our souls and then move in time towards time.

In this strife-torn valley, I have always been tormented by feelings of indefinite and eternal uncertainty. “The Half Mother” is an outcome of those feelings.

. . .but he’d seen elite warriors go down in flames enough times to struggle with the sovereignty of God yet yield to it

I would rather die than see tears in your eyes.

I know a lot of writers, and everyone works differently, but this is something that we truly have in common across all genres – the fiction has to be real inside your head.

Kara knew all he recognized was T and A on a string and he was nothing more than a sleazy puppeeter , so long as there were souls for sale he was ready to buy...