Fiction Quotes - Page 5

Possibly the most debilitating deception of all is to create a god of my own making, fool myself into believing that this limp god of mine is the true God, and then construct the entirety of my life on this flamboyantly fictional character. Possibly the most devastating realization of all is when the real God shows up, and in the showing up all of this come crashing down.

Time lost to pointless delay can never be regained. It is the most reprehensible kind of theft. Why was it that men did not grasp this simple fact? Money comes and goes and comes again, and knowledge can be acquired and forgotten and rediscovered, but time once lost is lost for good, each passing second irretrievable.

Would not the earth, quickened to an evil purpose by the sympathy of his eye, greet him with poisonous shrubs... Would he not suddenly sink into the earth, leaving a barren and blasted spot, where, in due course of time, would be seen deadly nightshade, dogwood, henbane, and whatever else of vegetable wickedness the climate could produce, all flourishing with hideous luxuriance?

If they follow the way of Money Chiefs, they shall die. Earth is sick and can no longer care for her children. Now, Earth’s children must care for Earth. Continue to pollute rivers and oceans – rivers and oceans shall drown you. Pollute sky – Sun Spirit shall burn you. Kill more trees – unclean air shall strangle you. Kill more Spirits – disease shall destroy you. Already, Money Chiefs’ skin burns. Their lungs choke on unclean air. Poisoned water spreads disease among them and all Spirits. Rising rivers and oceans shall sweep their homes and lives away. Money Chiefs think money heals broken lives. Unchanged, in the end, Money Chiefs’ money shall cost them their lives. -Frederic Perrin Rella Two Trees―The Money Chiefs

The pursuit of truth, not of facts, is the business of fiction.

If it ran, a Bean would eat it. If it fell, a Bean would eat it.

When writing fiction, you learn to only put things and characters in, that are going to progress your story. There is something to be learned about that approach in real life

I’m in love with fiction. A fantasy that slips between my fingers when reality sets in.

Live in your dreams, not your past.

Racism is a virus which can only be spread by us!

Like the 'good' characters in literature, the sane don't have any memorable lines.

Normality in our part of the world is a bit like a boiled egg: its humdrum surface conceals at its heart a yolk of egregious violence. It is our constant anxiety about that violence, our memory of its past labours and our dread of its future manifestations, that lays down the rules for how a people as complex and as diverse as we continue to coexist – continue to live together, tolerate each other and, from time to time, murder one another. As long as the centre holds, as long as the yolk doesn’t run, we’ll be fine. In moments of crisis it helps to take the long view.

Thank you,” I whisper. Words I never thought I would say to her. They unsettle us both.”“You want to thank me, Barrow?” she mutters, kicking away the last of my bindings. “Then keep your word. And let this fucking place burn.” (300)

There’s something about her, I remember thinking, a little mysterious. I tried to absorb the feeling for as long as I could before I went back to work. I tried not to think about it. Feelings throw everything off.

Patience is only a virtue when there is something worth waiting for.

But a bond is a bond. And when you’re young and haven’t yet learned to live in your own solitude, even a destructive bond can seem better than none.

Cheers went up around the decks as the Dolphins oars began to move as one in and out shifting and cutting away at the sea beneath, SICANIA RISING

The truth is there isn’t anything to me at all. All I know is that I can’t sleep well, I can’t dream well and I’m quite in love with you. That’s all there is to me. My greatest feature is my admiration for you. I know it’s not healthy. Like my insomnia. Like my dreamless nights. You make living alright. My nightmares come when I think of a night without Valeria. That’s when I realise you’re dead. That’s when I remember you’ve been gone for years. That’s when I remember I’m awake. And I wait for this dream called Life to leave me to my peace once and for all and forever.

Sure, Bob Dylan had some good songs. But he could have been a doctor.

I might not have been so young, but age alone doesn’t necessarily make you less foolish.

If you don't trust a novelist, who are you going to trust?

All the real secrets are buried, and only ghosts speak the truth.

No one can stop death, Omari. It is normal and certain. And nothing should get in the way of a person’s true destiny.

Inside the room there sat a rocker, which she sat on, and which had rocked her while she sipped the beer, because in spite of herself she had become so giddy to have so quickly relieved her heart that she allowed herself to lean backwards while in the rocker, which had made it possible for the rocker to rock her, although it was not her intention to be so rocked. Also there stood an ironing board with a still hot iron on it that was burning a yellow shift, and there was, among several items that were not as noticeable to the woman, and yet were noticeable enough to at least bear mention, a fake man."I hope you don't mind me asking," said the woman who lived in the room, but then while in her chair she nodded off.

Every fiction has its base in fact.

My spirit has been around far longer than my soul--I've lived several lifetimes already. And one this novel has been written, I will have lived several more.

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 mischievous ambition,—and too often both priest and lawyer have framed or made in part this instrument.

King Yorandt to Kristina in book three of Fracture the Secret Enemy Saga~Secretsrelease date: Summer 2014 Even the master does not play perfectly. He can only hope to make fewer mistakes than his opponent, and that in the end, he is the victor. Sajah (chess) is a ruthless game where the pieces are all pawns and the Queen is the true killer. She spares no one to protect the king. The king however, is ruled by all of the pieces that lay before him, even his opponent. Every move is a decision that can change the whole board, and the endgame.

Treat backstory like a pungent spice. I say this to encourage you to picture a jalapeno pepper that can set your mouth on fire, every time you even think about adding backstory into your book. What you need is subtlety.

You remember?' he said incredulously. 'What could you possibly remember?' he asked, staring at her, waiting for the answer.The beauty from within her soul shined brightly through her loving eyes as she looked deep into Noah’s now melting eyes.'I remember — I love you,' she said in a soft voice, nervously biting her lip.

Love, it is said, is blind, but love is not blind. It is an extra eye, which shows us what is most worthy of regard. To see the best is to see most clearly, and it is the lover's privilege.

Never give up! And write for yourself first and foremost.

Traveling leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.

She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through which indeed there curled the blue river of truth.

Finishing my thoughts aloud meant saying how my dad had passed, and I had failed. How I had smoked joints and lay in bed enabling my hopelessness. I’d been the ugly in my world.

Death is but a dream and life is merely the daydream of death.

I noticed him right away. No, it wasn’t his lean, rugged face. Or the dark waves of shiny hair that hung just a little too long on his forehead. It wasn’t the slim, collarless biker jacket he wore, hugging his lean shoulders. It was the way he stood. The confident way he waited in the cafeteria line to get a slice of pizza. He didn’t saunter. He didn’t amble. He stood at the center, and let the other people buzz around him. His stance was straight and sure.

She looked at me like I was stupid, the same look the girls in JC used to give me when I hadn’t heard of the latest boy band, or turned up at Zouk wearing unfashionable clothes.

Writing fiction is a way of expressing feelings and revealing a certain truth about life, goals, dreams and desires.

Beneath Albright’s office, the colliery sprawled across the hillside, red brick buildings scattered as though hurled from a great height, a hotchpotch of mismatched structures spattered on the valley floor. At the bottom stood the winding house, wheels motionless, above it, the engineering sheds and workshops, canteen and bath house. All lay empty. No buzz and hum of machinery. No voices raised in laughter or dispute. Gwyn found it unsettling: his lads had been out a month and a half and already the power had drained from the place. In the stillness, he caught the echo of footsteps. The crunch of boots on gravel. Generations of long-gone Pritchards clocking in and out. He was bound to Blackthorn by the coal that clogged his veins and by a bond of duty. The strike left him as diminished as his pit, day dragging after idle day.

I'm not the same person I was before, and I am deathly afraid I will never be her again...

Outside, even through the shut window-pane, the world looked cold.

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

Being a Dream Girl is never going to be about what you look like or how much you weigh. After all, our physical appearances are just reflections of our inner worlds. What makes you a Dream Girl is your emotional sensitivity, your self-awareness, and your ability to communicate who you are effectively and compassionately in the world.

It is the case that, albeit to a lesser extent, all fictions make their readers live "the impossible", taking them out of themselves, breaking down barriers, and making them share, by identifying with the characters of the illusion, a life that is richer, more intense, or more abject and violent, or simply different from the one that they are confined to by the high-security prison that is real life. Fictions exist because of this fact. Because we have only one life, and our desires and fantasies demand a thousand lives. Because the abyss between what we are and what we would like to be has to be bridged somehow. That was why fictions were born: so that, through living this vicarious, transient, precarious, but also passionate and fascinating life that fiction transports us to, we can incorporate the impossible into the possible and our existence can be both reality and unreality, history and fable, concrete life and marvellous adventure.

Merdeka!' the Malay man screamed.'Merdekaaaaaa!' the sea of people echoed.

Editing fiction is like using your fingers to untangle the hair of someone you love.

I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.

Once upon a time,’ is code for ‘I’m lying to you.’ We experience stories as lies and truth at the same time. We learn to empathize with real people via made-up people. The most important thing that fiction does is it lets us look out through other eyes, and that teaches us empathy—that behind every pair of eyes is somebody like us.

Fiction doesn’t tell us something we don’t know, it tells us something we know but don’t know that we know.

It is never too late or too soon. It is when it is supposed to be.

Jace’s husky voice almost came out in a purr. He said, “You want to make a bet on that, Charlie.” Oh yeah, he can sell that stuff alright. “No worries,” Jace was saying. “I only have eyes for you.” He touched the tip of my nose with his finger. I swatted him away. Jace laughed. ~Jace~

Religion is probably, after sex, the second oldest resource which human beings have available to them for blowing their mind.

The northern star changes its position every ten thousand years, but friendships can last for all eternity.— RJPeters

From a distance,' he says, 'my car looks just like every other car on the freeway, and Sarah Byrnes looks just like the rest of us. And if she's going to get help, she'll get it from herself or she'll get it from us. Let me tell you why I brought this up. Because the other day when I saw how hard it was for Mobe to go to the hospital to see her, I was embarrassed that I didn't know her better, that I ever laughed at one joke about her. I was embarrassed that I let some kid go to school with me for twelve years and turned my back on pain that must be unbearable. I was embarrassed that I haven't found a way to include her somehow the way Mobe has.'Jesus. I feel tears welling up, and I see them running down Ellerby's cheeks. Lemry better get a handle on this class before it turns into some kind of therapy group.So,' Lemry says quietly, 'your subject will be the juxtaposition of man and God in the universe?'Ellerby shakes his head. 'My subject will be shame.

Fiction is meant to illuminate, to explode, to refresh.

There were many tomorrows to be lived through his children. He could only hope that they would face them more courageously than he had, that his mistakes would serve as warning signs rather than crutches to lean on.

Allegedly, allegedly I say, the R.G.A. were extremely miffed of portrait painted of their monarch, King Tingaling XX, by Master. Portrait apparently, as it’s yet t’be unveiled, depicts King Tingaling XX in rather compromisin’ position with a pineapple, a wad of cash and his favourite pig, Buttercup.

The features of character are carved out of adversity.

Whether or not the couple ends up together at the end of a book doesn't determine whether the book has a happy ending or not. As long as the two people end up happy, it doesn't really matter if they end up happy together.