Failure Quote by John Gardner

“No fiction can have real interest if the central character is not an agent struggling for his or her own goals but a victim,…

— John Gardner

“What's remarkable about fiction is that it places you in the unusual position of having no trajectory. You stand aside, motives abandoned for the…

— Tom Rachman

“When writing fiction, you learn to only put things and characters in, that are going to progress your story. There is something to be…

— Carl Henegan

Fiction that intends to be something other than entertainment has a certain obligation, I think, to convince the reader, every time, that what is…

— Alice McDermott

“What was the point of having a situation worthy of fiction if the protagonist didn't behave as he would have done in a book?”

— Julian Barnes

“In real life people do occasionally act out of character or do things we wouldn’t normally expect them to do. In fiction, there should…

— Craig Hart

There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.

— Edgar Allan Poe

Fiction is about human beings, first and foremost. (It's not impossible to write fiction with no human protagonists, but it's very hard to keep…

— Charles Stross

“And yet, for a writer of fiction, part of the heart remains that of a stranger, for what we are trying to do is…

— Margaret Laurence

“Fiction that fails to engage an audience with the emotional intricacies of viable characters will, for many in that audience, simply alienate them with…

— Hal Duncan

“all writers, given adequate technique—technique that communicates—can stir our interest in their special subject matter, since at heart all fiction treats, directly or indirectly,…

— John Gardner

“Writing a book with completely fictitious characters is like running a democracy, centered around a capital state. You constantly live with the fear &…

— Shomprakash Sinha Roy