Pastoral Resources

Fiction is experimentation; when it ceases to be that, it ceases to be fiction.

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

For me the purest and truest art in the world is science fiction.

As man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, such men are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do not change their natures until they are converted into dust.

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

The fact is that one of the earliest lessons I learned in business was that balance sheets and income statements are fiction, cash flow is reality.

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.

His theory was that non-fiction could be as artful as fiction.

I tend to resist invitations to interpret my own fiction.

As you see, I do not treat the creation of fiction, that to say the invention and development of fantasies, as a form of abstract thought. I dont wish to deny the uses of the intellect, but sometimes one has the intuition that the intellect by itself will lead one nowhere.

If there were a better, clearer, shorter way of saying what the fiction says, then why not scrap the fiction?

I landed a job with Roger Corman. The job was to write the English dialogue for a Russian science fiction picture. I didn't speak any Russian. He didn't care whether I could understand what they were saying; he wanted me to make up dialogue.

There is an odd sense of responsibility attached to appearing in a drama about a real piece of history. A work of fiction is fun.

Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with totally different people.

A writer of fiction lives in fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not.

I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa.

I quit my job just to quit. I didn't quit my job to write fiction. I just didn't want to work anymore.

I felt Joyce was an influence on my fiction, but in a very general way, as a kind of inspiration and a model for the beauty of language.