A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end.
quote by Chaim Potok

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Telling Stories
There is fiction in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesnt mean
Youre not just telling stories
There is fiction in the space between
You and me
There is fiction in the space between
You and reality
You will do and say anything
To make your everyday life
Seem less mundane
There is fiction in the space between
You and me
Theres a science fiction in the space between
You and me
A fabrication of a grand scheme
Where I am the scary monster
I eat the city and as I leave the scene
In my spaceship I am laughing
In your remembrance of your bad dream
Theres no one but you standing
Leave the pity and the blame
For the ones who do not speak
You write the words to get respect and compassion
And for posterity
You write the words and make believe
There is truth in the space between
There is fiction in the space between
You and everybody
Give us all what we need
Give us one more sad sordid story
But in the fiction of the space between
Sometimes a lie is the best thing
Sometimes a lie is the best thing
song performed by by Tracy Chapman

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Some major writers have a huge impact, like Ayn Rand, who to my mind is a lousy fiction writer because her writing has no compassion and virtually no humor. She has a philosophical and economical message that she is passing off as fiction, but it really isn't fiction at all.
quote by Theodore Sturgeon

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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.
quote by Alain de Botton

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Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.
quote by J.G. Ballard

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I read very widely, both non-fiction and fiction, so I don't think there's a single writer who influences me.
quote by Peter Benchley

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Science Fiction Woman
She was my science fiction woman,
I was her science fiction man,
Yet our love was no fiction
In our science fiction land.
I wore my science fiction spacesuit,
She wore a spacesuit just like mine,
While we were floating together
In our science fiction minds.
She said her name was Taylor Trippy-
A flower child light years beyond-
She was a science fiction hippy-
A spacey and vivacious blonde.
She told me of our global warming,
Greenhouse gases, acid rain,
She told me everything I know
About the structure of the brain.
So we cruised through constellations
In our science fiction ship,
Transcending time and generations-
Forever free, forever hip.
She came from some unknown planet
In some uncharted galaxy,
And we were both kindred souls
In our cosmic fantasy.
And I don't know how I knew her
Or how we came to meet that night-
She was my science fiction woman,
Who traveled at the speed of light.
At night I look upon the ocean,
The distant stars where she might be-
She was my science fiction woman,
Who set my heart forever free.
June 17,2008
poem by Alexander Shaumyan

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Questions are fiction, and answers are anything from more fiction to science-fiction.
quote by Saul Steinberg

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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.
Basically, fiction is people. You can't write fiction about ideas.
quote by Theodore Sturgeon

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And then I met Jerry and he's such a creative fiction writer, and I don't know if there's ever been a team put together the way we are - where one person does the theological way out and suggestions, and the other person goes into the cave and does the fiction writing.
quote by Tim LaHaye

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My old English buddy, John Rackham, wrote and told me what made science fiction different from all other kinds of literature - science fiction is written according to the science fiction method.
quote by Frederik Pohl

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I could write historical fiction, or science fiction, or a mystery but since I find it fascinating to research the clues of some little know period and develop a story based on that, I will probably continue to do it.
quote by Jean M. Auel

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For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.
quote by Iris Chang

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Fictional
everything i write comes back to me
like they are real
in flesh and blood and friends write
how come
how is it that we are there in your poems
when they are supposedly
some works of a writer
imaginary and fictional
i have no answer
i write about love and broken hearts
and another friend
emails if i am alright
is there anything she can do to help?
but i say again
this is not me this has nothing to do with me
this is fiction
and she does not believe me
she says,
there you are trying to lie again
when blood runs surging like some pulse
of a dying man wanting to be alive
in your poetry,
i have no answer
the poems are works of fiction
it is not me it is about him and her and them
she shrugs off her shoulders
and reads again about the old church where
she once knelt and prayed
there was this girl who fell in love
and whose heart was
beautifully torn to pieces
she says she is her
the poem is true
and there was this boy
who was with her praying
who, when he became a man
broke her heart
she says it is you it is you
the poem is true,
the poems are true
who will ever believe me now?
i have always lied all along
count it from the first poem
when i said about
it and i said it was
it is
all about nothing and
it will always be about nothing
but fiction, nothing personal, but it can be also painful and lingering.....
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Science Fiction is not just about the future of space ships travelling to other planets, it is fiction based on science and I am using science as my basis for my fiction, but it's the science of prehistory - palaeontology and archaeology - rather than astronomy or physics.
quote by Jean M. Auel

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That was par for the course but I also found that commissions were being canceled and in fact I considered this directly libelous - I write biographies for a living as well as being a journalist - for a non fiction book to be called fiction from beginning to end.
quote by Anthony Holden

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Beyond that, I seem to be compelled to write science fiction, rather than fantasy or mysteries or some other genre more likely to climb onto bestseller lists even though I enjoy reading a wide variety of literature, both fiction and nonfiction.
quote by Joan D. Vinge

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I have always distrusted memoir. I tend to write my memoirs through my fiction. It's easier to get to the truth by not claiming that you are speaking it. Some things can be said in fiction that can never be said in memoir.
quote by Armistead Maupin

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I learned to write fiction the way I learned to read fiction - by skipping the parts that bored me.
quote by Jonathan Lethem

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Fiction
Tel me what is your recently invented pretense
Your latest lie?
Shape, form, color, texture,
Of your many selves like your unequal fingers
More than the number
Of your allowable toes,
Feign and feign
That is feigning
Feign in feigning
Fingers like other fingers,
The shape
Of your fingers
You make things up
You invent new stories
And without any excuses
At all, like a very clever man loving many women
At the same time,
Figment, fabric, fabricate fabrics
To entertain, you are justifying, just to entertain, not to
Deceive
To lure them to glorify themselves
To believe about some goodness and beauty and the
Truth so well expressed in fiction,
In the field of imagination things work themselves into human beings
The cows talk in affable fables, the characters talk about avarice, love, hate,
And murders done in fiction,
We learn a lot,
And in that vast field of fiction
You are the cicada singing
Alone
To a cold and dark night
Wishing to be
A black bird, the one that flies and sings
And goes to places where
You have never been.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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