Writing fiction Quotes

Writing fiction, like reading fiction, is a practice in empathy.

— Jennifer Haigh

I didn't lie, I was writing fiction with my mouth." Homer Simpson

— Matt Groening

I was writing fiction, but not finishing fiction.

— Elizabeth Moon

The road to Hell is paved with unbought stuffed dogs.

— Ernest Hemingway

So much emotion goes into writing fiction.

— Anonymous

Writing fiction is an act of imaginative empathy.

— Andrew Sean Greer

Writing fiction, I really just sit there and it just comes.

— Alexander McCall Smith

You learn a lot, writing fiction.

— Penelope Lively

writing fiction is the best thing there is because absolutely everything is possible!

— Mario Vargas Llosa

That's what I like most about writing fiction over journalism: the easy metaphors!

— Michael Connelly

I began writing fiction because it was the only way to tell all the intricacies of a real-life spy story.

— David Ignatius

In writing fiction, I can be free. I can use my life. The raw material is my experiences.

— Miriam Toews

I think one of the paradoxes of writing fiction is when people enjoy it, they want it to be real. So they…

— Junot Diaz

When you're writing fiction, you're in every character 'cause you can't help it.

— Marcia Clark

Expressing political opinion can be a powerful way to establish a character's voice when writing fiction.

— Jen Lancaster

You write fiction, you're writing memoir, and when you're writing memoir, you're writing fiction.

— Elizabeth Gilbert

When I'm writing fiction I'm thinking, God, this is so hard - I have to make all this stuff up! I wish…

— Douglas Preston

Speech recognition is utterly crap for writing fiction. If you try reading a novel aloud you'll soon figure out why - written…

— Charles Stross

I find in my own writing that only fiction - and rarely, a poem - fully tests me to the kind of…

— John Updike

I would, however, start writing fiction about 10 years before I actually did, because it's such great fun to do, many times…

— Judith Krantz

My writing of fiction comes under a very general heading of those teachers, critics, scholars who like to try their own hand…

— George Steiner

The pleasure of writing fiction is that you are always spotting some new approach, an alternative way of telling a story and…

— Penelope Lively

I think the thing that I lost in myself when I stopped writing fiction and the thing that I rediscovered and started…

— Elizabeth Gilbert

The lovely thing about writing is, well, two things. One, writing fiction allows us to bring an order to our lives that…

— Octavia E. Butler

I'm really such a bumbler! Writing fiction is like arranging furniture in a dark room. I can't see what I'm doing. I…

— Joanna Scott

Burroughs called his greatest novel 'Naked Lunch,' by which he meant it's what you see on the end of a fork. Telling…

— J. G. Ballard

I came to fantasy fairly late. For some ten years, I had been happily writing fiction and non-fiction for adults. But I…

— Lloyd Alexander

“Don't look back until you've written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceding day.…

— Will Self

There's something peculiar about writing fiction. It requires an interesting balance between seeing the world as a child and having the wisdom…

— Kazuo Ishiguro

The key of writing fiction isn't just to remove something that the reader or listener can easily imagine. It's not a matter…

— Peter Turchi

I guess it must be a time-of-life thing, looking back and trying to make some sense of who I am and where…

— Tim Winton

About a year after (my stories began being published), magazine editor George Scithers, suggested to me that since I was so new…

— Barry B. Longyear

“I’ve learned, from working with translators over the years, that the original novel is, in a way, a translation itself. It is…

— Michael Cunningham

“Under fun’s new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don’t want…

— David Foster Wallace

“I’ve said it’s hard. Here’s how hard: everybody I know who wades deep enough into memory’s waters drowns a little. Between chapters…

— Mary Karr

Writing fiction lets you be a little more emotional and unguarded, a little freer. Writing fictional characters is also really different from…

— Elif Batuman

“I have come to see this fear, this sense of my own imperilment by my creations, as not only an inevitable, necessary…

— Michael Chabon

“The best thing that can happen to me when I'm writing fiction is to lose sight of the fact that I'm writing…

— Elizabeth Berg

We all have a tendency to over generalize our individual experiences. After I've published something, I'll meet someone who says, "I'm Haitian,…

— Edwidge Danticat

“In almost all cases, the objective of a trip is paradoxical. You ultimately want to return to the starting point safely. Writing…

— Haruki Murakami