Non Fiction Quotes - Page 3

• In high school, I was very active in extracurricular activities such as art, theatre, and choir. I also wrote for the school newspaper, but not regularly, because I never liked writing non-fiction very much.

  Meg Cabot

  Art, School, Writing

  4 Copy quote

• I have to say that writing about my writing process is more daunting than writing non-fiction.

  Sefi Atta

  Writing, Fiction, Process

  4 Copy quote

• Im omnivorous in my tastes, fiction and non-fiction, always several books on the go, though Ill read a novel in a day or two.

  O.R. Melling

  Book, Two, Fiction

  4 Copy quote

• I love the opportunity to just let my imagination run riot! Non-fiction can be very restrictive.

  Raymond Buckland

  Running, Opportunity, Imagination

  Source: paganpages.org

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I didn’t like it [computer] when I first began using it. Where it’s helped me a lot is in nonfiction which is a kind of different process. You’ve got research, you’ve got your notes, You can block out what you want to work on for the next 10 pages and put it in another file, and then you can kind of carve it into shape

  Joan Didion

  Block, Different, Fiction

  "National Book Award". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 3, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The one thing fiction and non-fiction writing have in common for me is that sense of trying to get the sentences to be minimal but at the same time be a little overfull - to encourage them to do a kind of poetic work.

  George Saunders

  Writing, Trying, Fiction

  4 Copy quote

• I thought I was going to write fiction but I fell backwards into non-fiction. It started when I got locked out of two apartments in one day and I told the story to some friends, one of whom worked in the 'Village Voice' and asked me to turn it into an essay.

  Sloane Crosley

  Writing, Two, Voice

  "Book Talk: Sloane Crosley hits brothels and clowns in new essays". Interview with Belinda Goldsmith, www.reuters.com. June 23, 2010.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• When you're writing non-fiction, you go as far as you can go, and then ethically you have to stop. You can't go. You can't suppose. You can't imagine. And I think there's something in human nature that wants to finish the story.

  Geraldine Brooks

  Writing, Thinking, Fiction

  4 Copy quote

• I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers pay to the formal aspects of their work.

  Alain de Botton

  Writing, Trying, Attention

  9 Copy quote

• You can tell within a sentence if something is fiction or non-fiction. You can tell in the artifice of the language or the care of the construction the difference between art and life.

  Ethan Canin

  Art, Differences, Fiction

  Source: www.identitytheory.com

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I lay off a lot modern fiction and only rely on living writers for non-fiction work.

  Henry Rollins

  Fiction, Modern, Rely

  "#tbt An Interview with Henry Rollins". Interview with Eric Stein, www.brothersdepaul.com. January 7, 2015.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Book, Writing, Creative

  7 Copy quote

• I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.

  Laurell K. Hamilton

  Writing, People, Fiction

  7 Copy quote

• I'm a reluctant writer of non-fiction, in part because I don't really feel qualified.

  William Gibson

  Fiction, Feels, Qualified

  Interview with Amy Cavanaugh, www.avclub.com. October 14, 2011.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I mainly read non-fiction, and that's probably because I have a huge amount of insecurity about my lack of education and the things I don't know.

  Steve Earle

  Insecurity, Fiction, Lack Of Education

  5 Copy quote

• I do teach fiction and non-fiction, and usually I'm interested in works that confuse genre, but I'm very new to teaching creative writing, I don't have an MFA, or a PhD, I tend to approach it just through my own practice.

  Kate Zambreno

  Teaching, Writing, Practice

  "The naming is a political act, the writing is a political act, a revolt against disappearance". Interview with Noah Charney, logger.believermag.com. November 3, 2014.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Life is an interpretation of a series of facts, and that interpretation is really what life is about. So the division between non-fiction and fiction has a certain logic, but it's a very limited one. And by and large, it isn't helpful.

  Yann Martel

  Facts, Division, Fiction

  Source: www.avclub.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think poetry is the best thing I do. It's certainly the purest. I seem to switch gears without too much trouble. Non-fiction is in many ways the easiest to write.

  Erica Jong

  Writing, Thinking, Fiction

  4 Copy quote

• As strange as this may sound, I very seldom read fiction. Because my novels require so much research, almost everything I read is non - fiction - histories, biographies, translations of ancient texts.

  Dan Brown

  Sound, Fiction, Research

  4 Copy quote

• I say at the very end of "Winter Journal" that I do dream about my father often. I think I have a tremendous compassion for him, which has grown over the years. A certain kind of pity for him also in that he was so unrealised as a human being, so dogged, and so shut-off from people in many ways. You know, I've been writing another book, and it's another non-fiction autobiographical work, kind of a compliment to "Winter Journal", and it's just finished.

  Paul Auster

  Dream, Father, Book

  Interview with Wayne Gooderham, www.timeout.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The idea of a flip book still really appeals to me. That idea of fiction and non-fiction.

  Yann Martel

  Book, Ideas, Fiction

  4 Copy quote

• I'd be surprised if non-fiction writers hate to be interviewed. We all hate them, because there's really nothing to say except "Read the book." Right? At least with non-fiction, you can kind of convey some information, and people can decide for themselves whether they want more of that kind of information. But with a novel, what am I going to do?

  Jonathan Franzen

  Hate, Book, People

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. September 1, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Perhaps this is the purpose of all art, all writing, on the murders, fiction and non-fiction: Simply to participate.

  Alan Moore

  Art, Writing, Purpose

  8 Copy quote

• Writing fiction is not a profession that leaves one well-disposed toward reading fiction. One starts out loving books and stories, and then one becomes jaded and increasingly hard to please. I read less and less fiction these days, finding the buzz and the joy I used to get from fiction in ever stranger works of non-fiction, or poetry.

  Neil Gaiman

  Book, Reading, Writing

  Neil Gaiman (2002). “Adventures in the Dream Trade”, N E S F A Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fiction and non-fiction are only different techniques of story telling. For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Non-fiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.

  Arundhati Roy

  Morning, Broken, Technique

  Arundhati Roy (2006). “Ordinary Person's Guide To Empire”, p.13, Penguin Books India

  36 Copy quote

  Show source