Author Quote by Pat Barker

Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer. What I hate in fiction is…

— Pat Barker

Readers of novels often fall into the bad habit of being overly exacting about the characters' moral flaws. They apply to these fictional beings…

— Edmund White

I know when I go and see a writer, the first thing I think to myself is, 'Are they the character in the book?'…

— Irvine Welsh

“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

Any author of fiction will tell you that characters don't need to be told what to do.

— Alexander McCall Smith

Most good fiction also has a character the writer seems to know more deeply than anyone can actually be known in life, but a…

— Nell Freudenberger

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

— W. E. B. Griffin

“We never end up with the book we began writing. Characters twist it and turn it until they get the life that is perfect…

— C.K. Webb

The great thing about fiction is you can fix things and make things better.

— Valerie Plame

I don't like to read novels where the novelist tells me what to think about the situation and the characters. I prefer to discover…

— Frederick Wiseman

It's easier to write about those you hate — just as it's easier to criticize a bad play or a bad book.

— Dorothy Parker

The great thing about fiction is that everything you care about ends up going into the book.

— Peter Heller