Nonfiction Quotes

• I still believe nonfiction is the most important literature to come out of the second half of the 20th century.

  Tom Wolfe

  Believe, Important, Half

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• It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer.

  E. O. Wilson

  Writing, Thinking, Technique

  "Ants and Answers: A Conversation with E. O. Wilson" by Deborah Treisman, www.newyorker.com. January 15, 2010.

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• Writing nonfiction is more like sculpture, a matter of shaping the research into the finished thing.

  Joan Didion

  Writing, Sculpture, Research

  "Joan Didion, The Art of Nonfiction No. 1". Interview with Hilton Als, www.theparisreview.org. 2006.

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• You can tell a more over-the-top incredible story if you use a nonfiction form.

  Chuck Palahniuk

  Stories, Use, Incredibles

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• In fiction, when you paint yourself into a corner, you can write a pair of suction cups onto the bottoms of your shoes and walk up the wall and out the skylight and see the sun breaking through the clouds. In nonfiction, you don't have that luxury.

  Tom Robbins

  Wall, Writing, Clouds

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• People respect nonfiction but they read novels.

  E. O. Wilson

  People, Novel

  "EO Wilson: Our Greatest Biologist Writes A Novel, ‘Anthill’". Interview with Steve Ross, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 5, 2010.

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• In nonfiction, you have that limitation, that constraint, of telling the truth.

  Peter Matthiessen

  Fiction And Nonfiction, Telling The Truth, Constraints

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I don't read for amusement, I read for enlightenment. I do a lot of reviewing, so I have a steady assignment of reading. I'm also a judge for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which gives awards to literature and nonfiction.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Book, Reading, Awards

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• In this time of the Internet and nonfiction, to be on an actual bookshelf in an actual bookstore is exciting in itself.

  Chris Abani

  Bookstores, Internet, Exciting

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• the challenge of nonfiction is to marry art and truth.

  Phyllis Rose

  Art, Challenges

  Phyllis Rose (1993). “The Penguin book of women's lives”, Viking Canada

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• I think the goal with any writing, but especially narrative nonfiction, is to put the blockade of putting your thoughts in this unnatural medium of print and then trying to reach through that and actually convey what's going on, what you think, and make people laugh and recognize themselves while doing it. Definitely the laughing thing.

  Sloane Crosley

  Writing, Thinking, People

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• My platform has been to reach reluctant readers. And one of the best ways I found to motivate them is to connect them with reading that interests them, to expand the definition of reading to include humor, science fiction/fantasy, nonfiction, graphic novels, wordless books, audio books and comic books.

  Jon Scieszka

  Book, Reading, Fiction

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• Nonfiction speaks to the head. Fiction speaks to the heart. Poetry speaks to the soul. It's the essence of beauty. The essence of pain. It pleases the eye and the ear.

  Ellen Hopkins

  Pain, Heart, Eye

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• I come from a little island with the Caribbean Sea on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. I come from, really, nowhere, and for me, the fiction and the nonfiction, creative or otherwise, all come from the same place.

  Jamaica Kincaid

  Ocean, Islands, Sea

  "Jamaica Kincaid talks about 'See Now Then'". Interview with Kevin Nance, www.chicagotribune.com. February 16, 2013.

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• I am consumed, or I have been consumed, with these issues of motherhood and the way we act out societal expectations and roles. So both my nonfiction and my fiction have been pretty much exclusively about that.

  Ayelet Waldman

  Motherhood, Issues, Expectations

  "Ayelet Waldman on Acting Your Age". Interview with Tim J Luddy, www.motherjones.com. November/December 2009.

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• There is always a certain leap of faith that editors have made with their nonfiction writers. If the trust is broken, things can get very embarrassing for the writers and the publisher.

  A. Scott Berg

  Editors, Broken, Leap Of Faith

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• But with nonfiction, the task is very straightforward: Do the research, tell the story

  Laura Hillenbrand

  Tasks, Stories, Research

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• To me, the moment you're talking about nonfiction you're talking about reality.

  David Shields

  Reality, Talking, Moments

  Source: www.gq.com

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• With nonfiction, I go in trying to be really honest about what my preconceptions are.

  George Saunders

  Trying, Honest, Preconceptions

  Source: therumpus.net

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• There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Fiction, Narrative, Fiction And Nonfiction

  New York Times Book Review, January 27, 1988.

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• Every time I write a nonfiction book I get sued.

  Joseph Wambaugh

  Book, Writing

  Interview with Ann Bruns, www.bookreporter.com. May 17, 2002.

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• I used to distinguish between my fiction and nonfiction in terms of superiority or inferiority.

  Peter Matthiessen

  Fiction, Inferiority, Used

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• Ironically, in today's marketplace successful nonfiction has to be unbelievable, while successful fiction must be believable.

  Jerry B. Jenkins

  Successful, Fiction, Today

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• Ah, well, I have no talent for nonfiction, that's my problem.

  Jonathan Coe

  Fiction And Nonfiction, Talent, Problem

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• I've written six novels and four pieces of nonfiction, so I don't really have a genre these days.

  Anne Lamott

  Pieces, Four, Six

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