Books Quote by Flannery O'Connor

“I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's…

— Flannery O'Connor

Writing fiction is for me a fraught business, an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel, and sometimes…

— Joan Didion

To write fiction is to think that you're doing it wrong - that your work habits are inhibiting you; that you've chosen the wrong…

— Ben Dolnick

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.

— Flannery O'Connor

Fiction always reveals a lot about the person who is writing it. That's the scary thing. Not in a straightforward autobiographical sense. But the…

— Katie Kitamura

Fiction writing is an act of imagination, lived experience is secondary in many ways, writing a novel really is all about inventing worlds and…

— Ayana Mathis

Writing fiction means putting a lot of what you believe about the world at risk, because you have to follow your characters.

— Phil Klay

Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to…

— Flannery O'Connor

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

— Elif Batuman

When you write fiction, you're like a bird making a nest. You remember every little story ever told you. It's funny how things come…

— J. Courtney Sullivan

Fiction writing is just an excuse to go discover interesting things.

— Anthony Doerr

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

— Penelope Lively