Nonfiction Quotes - Page 7

• Nonfiction requires enormous discipline. You construct the terms of your story, and then you stick to them.

  Barbara Kingsolver

  Discipline, Stories, Sticks

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• Nonfiction is more personal for me. It's more personal in that it's more direct, and actually it's always been more direct, even when I first started doing pieces.

  Joan Didion

  Pieces, Firsts, Direct

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• It makes more sense to write one big book - a novel or nonfiction narrative - than to write many stories or essays. Into a long, ambitious project you can fit or pour all you possess and learn.

  Annie Dillard

  Book, Writing, Long

  Annie Dillard (2016). “The Abundance”, p.85, Canongate Books

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• It's hard to do fiction and nonfiction simultaneously.

  Erica Jong

  Fiction, Fiction And Nonfiction, Hard

  "Oprah, Kitty and Me" by Erica Jong, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 13, 2010.

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• Every time I get through the work on a book of nonfiction, I say I'll never do it again; it takes so much out of you.

  Dave Eggers

  Book

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• I could talk more directly in a nonfiction voice than I could in fiction.

  Joan Didion

  Voice, Fiction

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• If you wrote about sex the way Jim [Salter] writes about sex in nonfiction, you would be a sociopath.

  Lorin Stein

  Sex, Writing, Would Be

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• I don't think the potential for comics in nonfiction has been exploited nearly as much as it could be.

  Scott McCloud

  Thinking, Has Beens

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• Redheaded Peckerwood, which unerringly walks the fine line between fiction and nonfiction, is a disturbingly beautiful narrative about unfathomable violence and its place on the land

  Luc Sante

  Beautiful, Land, Lines

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• In Bosnian, there's no distinction in literature between fiction and nonfiction; there's no word describing that.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Fiction, Literature, Bosnians

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• I read a lot of nonfiction - especially books about the brain.

  Ellen Pompeo

  Book, Brain

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• I've always considered myself a nonfiction artist.

  Jim Sanborn

  Artist

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• But I don't read a lot of fiction. I prefer the nonfiction stuff.

  Andy Richter

  Fiction, Stuff

  "Q+A: Andy Richter's Secret to Happiness". Interview with Eric Spitznagel, www.esquire.com. March 13, 2012.

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• I contend that in the kind of nonfiction I write, and that other people also pursue, anything is permissible provided the reader knows what you're taking liberties with.

  William Least Heat-Moon

  Writing, People, Liberty

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• A great read; an exciting, frightening account of organized crime today. But like all important works of nonfiction, it goes further… This book is must reading for anyone with an interest in the enduring effects of the Vietnam War, the subject of crime in our streets, and the issue of personal responsibility in a harsh, chaotic world.

  Le Ly Hayslip

  War, Reading, Book

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• My entire career, in fiction or nonfiction, I have reported and written about people who are not like me.

  Tom Wolfe

  Careers, People, Fiction

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• Please, no matter how we advance technologically, please don't abandon the book. There is nothing in our material world more beautiful than the book.

  Patti Smith

  Beautiful, Book, Acceptance

  "National Book Award for Patti Smith". National Book Award Acceptance speech, www.nytimes.com. November 17, 2010.

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• Inexperienced fiction and creative nonfiction writers are often told to show, not tell - to write scenes, dramatize, cut exposition, cut summary - but it can be misguided advice. Good prose almost always requires both showing and telling, scenes and summary, the two basic components of creative prose

  Laurie Alberts

  Writing, Cutting, Creative Nonfiction

  Laurie Alberts (2010). “Showing & Telling: Learn How to Show & When to Tell for Powerful & Balanced Writing”, p.1, Writer's Digest Books

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• If you go through any newspaper or magazine and look for active, kicking verbs in the sentences, you will realize that this lack of well used verbs is the main trouble with modern English writing. Almost all nonfiction nowadays is written in a sort of pale, colorless sauce of passives and infinitives, motionless and flat as paper.

  Rudolf Flesch

  Writing, Editing, Kicking

  Rudolf Flesch (1946). “The Art of Plain Talk”

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• I don't read that many novels, I'm more of a nonfiction fan.

  Cory Monteith

  Fans, Novel

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

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• A typical biography relying upon individuals' notorious memories and the anecdotes they've invented contains a high degree of fiction, yet is considered 'nonfiction.'

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Memories, Typical, Degrees

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• I think I can safely call 2012 average. Overall, it was a stronger year for nonfiction than fiction - a situation that would've surprised me back in January, when I was looking forward to big new novels from several authors I really love.

  David Edelstein

  Thinking, Average, Years

  Source: www.vulture.com

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• I feel better off doing what I know how to do. I feel a strong element of fictional style in travel writing anyway. Some call it creative nonfiction.

  John Gimlette

  Strong, Writing, Feel Better

  Source: www.identitytheory.com

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• I'm all about nonfiction. I rarely read fiction. I like to read about things that really happened, facts, real life situations. That's what inspires me.

  Phil Keoghan

  Real, Inspire, Facts

  "Adventurer. Storyteller. Host of the Amazing Race". Interview with Zoe Kors, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. May 25, 2013.

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• When I wrote nonfiction, my best work was the really personal stuff.

  Ann Patchett

  Stuff, Best Work, Personal Stuff

  "Ann Patchett lets readers into her personal life in new collection of essays". "PBS NewsHour" with Jeffrey Brown, www.pbs.org. December 13, 2013.

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