Always Quote by Claire Messud

So much of what I write in fiction is based on true stories.

— Mark Kurlansky

There's a problem with narratives. Most that spring to mind are fictional.

— Howard Jacobson

Our stories about our own lives are a form of fiction, I began to see and become more insistent as we grow older, even…

— Roger Angell

We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true…

— Neil Gaiman

One of the things that writing has taught me is that fiction has a life of its own. Fictional places are sometimes more real…

— Joanne Harris

Well you can't believe everything you read. After all, by definition, fiction writers lie for a living.

— Janette Rallison

We live in a culture that has a real hard time distinguishing fiction from reality. Even when they're told something is fiction.

— Nic Pizzolatto

I wonder if it's in the nature of fiction writers to never quite see their own lives as 'real,' since we are always making…

— Julia Glass

I think that most of us, anyway, read these stories that we know are not "true" because we're hungry for another kind of truth:…

— Orson Scott Card

Fiction comes in all shapes and sizes. Secrets,lies,stories. We all tell them. Sometimes,because we hope to entertain. Sometimes,because we need to distract. And sometimes,…

— Jodi Picoult

Whenever I wrote fiction, people always seemed to think that what I wrote was true, that it was entirely autobiographical. And when I would…

— Jonathan Ames

Among its many other obligations, fiction always has to be believable. Life does not have to suffer such constraint, and much of what takes…

— John McGahern