Whenever I’d get howlin’ over something, he’d grab my ass up from wherever I was and head straight for the john. Momma said my head would get banged up along the way, but she said...

Knowing too much had turned him into something else, and he wasn’t sure he liked this newer him, although he felt he could not stop being this other him, darker.

Fiction shows us the past as well as the present moment in mortal light; it is an art served by the indelibility of our memory, and one empowered by a sharp and prophetic awareness of...

I refuse to live in a constant fighting match, Landon. It will not do!’ ‘And I’ve tried living without you, and it just won’t do!

Her eyes were a rich dark brown that were so deep, they reminded me of my sleepless nights, awake, staring into complete darkness. I felt compelled to look deeper, searching for something inside her, but...

Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

Respect the dead, learn from them, do not follow or avenge them.

For truth is always strange; stranger than fiction.

Fiction may amuse us, but reality instills lessons to be imbibed through experience; to ‘live’ this stark reality called ‘life’ as a blessing, whereas some foolishly waste it by following fiction and fictitious characters.

By the time I was sixteen I had read many books and I had become a freethinker.

Hell, he now understood, went beyond simple torture. Hell inflicted agony with intermittent reprieves to maintain the hope of peace. Hell was not endless dark, but rare rays of sunlight to keep one’s eyes longing...

Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable; what it is or what it means can never be said.

The last image I registered was Ethan and my hand – linked, bound and unbreakable.

I came to the party with the sole purpose of getting completely shit-faced, to be perfectly honest. That was it, that was The Plan from the very beginning. I wanted more than anything that ever...

In the mind of all, fiction, in the logical sense, has been the coin of necessity;—in that of poets of amusement—in that of the priest and the lawyer of mischievous immorality in the shape of...

Sometimes people who look different from you are scary. Maybe they are ugly. Maybe they are loud. Maybe theyare big. Maybe they are green. Maybe they are all those things. But you should not be...

My mother picked me up in her arms, touching my checks comforting my distress. I stared into her eyes and held her hair in my small hands, for the first time realizing what a moment...

And there it is! Bravo! I knew it was only a matter of time before Byron realized he had an audience. That man is simply incapable of keeping his shirt on when there are spectators....

Appalling things can happen to children. And even a happy childhood is filled with sadnesses. Is there any other period in your life when you hate your best friend on Monday and love them again...

Chosen

I have a question for you. When you were a little boy, is this the man you dreamed of becoming?

I’m pregnant.” I instinctively picture a sixteen-year-old at the dinner table- pale, unwell, with a scoundrel of a boyfriend- forcing herself to blurt out her mother’s deepest fear.) (27)

Fiction, however, sometimes ensures disappointment with reality

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...

You never give such relationships a thought, To give a thought, to take a thought is a function of dissociation, distance. You can’t exercise memory until you’ve removed yourself from memory’s source.

Did you see him eat?

I’ve been told I’m an excellent kisser.

T.G.T.B.T: too good to be true.

Edward smiled, I smiled, even Bernardo smiled. Olaf just looked sinister.

Why won’t you just go and find out?” the question startled her. She whirled around to come face to face with her evil aunt; Ursula.

Irma, she said. But I had started to walk away. I heard her say some more things but by then I had yanked my skirt up and was running down the road away from her...

Eagles, buffalos and deserts vast, it’s no good living in the fucking past.

Surrealism also refuses the representation of reality: reality can only be; its existence proves its reality. Fiction thereby becomes impossible or is, by definition, false.

Remember, nothing happens before it’s supposed to, so trust that, as you are striving for authenticity and personal excellence, the recognition of your life’s purpose is nearing closer.

For the girl without words, there is laughter for what is light, gesture for want, and tears for all that is dark. There is not much more. Names are nothing but extravagance.

But that which is called a Flower by any other name would still be as trusting and they were not to change her. In fact, she grew only more Hothouse-gorgeous as the bitterness poured down...

She believes poetry is ‘a way of coming to know the realness of things; fiction is a way of coming to know the world of relationships; nonfiction is a way of coming to know the...

Yeah, tell me I’m a bottle of single malt scotch, she thought. That’s the way to my heart.

A related question is where in time to begin. Should you begin far back in a character’s past and move forward, or should you begin in the present and make use of flashbacks only where...

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.

Amelia nodded her head, “That makes perfect sense.””No is doesn’t,” jeered Otto.”Yes, it does,” sighed Amelia. “Don’t you ever remember anything important?””Of course, I remember how many Star Trek seasons there were and when the...

The truth is, time marches on and you have two choices: You move forward, come what may, and you experience all the sour and sweet things that fly at you from around corners, or you...

Cery: So, Hem, tell me why I shouldn’t see how many holes I need to make before you start leaking money?

An eye for an eye my friend.

Reality is a cliché from which we escape by metaphor.

My great-great grandfather and I were the best of friends, although we never met

staying focused.” Right! My pants are on fire, and she’s handing me a crash course in Psych 101!

These short stories are vast structures existing mostly in the subconscious of our cultural history. They will live with the reader long after the words have been translated into ideas and dreams. That’s because a...

There were no absolutes in fiction, no certain way to deliver what was needed. So it was no surprise most technical writers considered novel-writing a gateway to madness.

Not that length and weight alone indicate excellence; many epic tales are pretty much epic crap.