Doe Quote by George Saunders

People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction and philosophy.

— John Cheever

I think fiction lends itself to messiness rather than the ideal, and plays well with the ironies surrounding what happens versus what should happen.

— Colm Toibin

If the moral good of fiction stems mainly from a habit of mind it inculcates in the reader, styles are neither good nor bad,…

— Mary Gordon

Nobody is ever just a straight up protagonist or antagonist - everybody's morally ambiguous.

— Cheyenne Jackson

I am not particularly distressed by the state of fiction or the role of the writer. The more marginal, perhaps ultimately the more trenchant…

— Don DeLillo

People tend to think of their lives as having a dramatic arc, because they read too much fiction.

— Will Self

“I can't accept that a work of fiction should be either immoral or moral. It should merely show the world as it is and…

— Anthony Burgess

“An author has to fit into the skin of her characters, to imagine being trapped by unfortunate and sometimes violent circumstances she herself has…

— Loretta H. Marion

Fiction is the great repository of the moral sense. The wicked get punished.

— Anita Brookner

Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is…

— Jane Rule

Fiction is socially meaningful.

— David Guterson

I tend to always love material with flawed protagonists and morally ambiguous people.

— Laura Dern