Non Fiction Quotes:

The most deeply personal of my works are the non-fiction works, the autobiographical works, because there, I'm talking about myself very directly.

- Paul Auster

source: Interview with Austin Allen, bigthink.com. November 5, 2009.

topic: Talking, Fiction, Non Fiction

It's true that I don't rearrange that much in the fiction, but I feel if you change even one name or the order of one event then you have to call it fiction or you get all the credits of non-fiction without paying the price.

- Nicholson Baker

topic: Order, Names, Credit, Non Fiction

I make non-fiction partly because I'm not that good of a writer. My talent, if I have any, is in balancing, capturing and directing reality, rather than creating scenarios.

- Robert Greene

source: Source: www.indiewire.com

topic: Reality, Creating, Fiction, Non Fiction

To my mind, the prose in a non-fiction work that's going to endure has to be of the same quality as the prose in a work of fiction that endures.

- Robert Caro

source: "The Round Table: Fiction, Biography And The Use Of Power". Interview with Kurt Vonnegut, www.robertcaro.com. 1999.

topic: Mind, Quality, Fiction, Non Fiction

That is as true for fiction or non-fiction. The writer has to really know their subject. It is really important to remember that the readers are a lot smarter than the writer. Also, good writing has to do with rewriting. You will never get it right the first time. So you rewrite and rewrite again until you get it right. Until you, and the reader, will be able to visualize what you're writing about.

- Michael Scott

topic: Writing, Important, Fiction, Non Fiction

A couple of pieces of advice for the kids who are serious about writing are: first of all, to read everything you can get your hands on so you can become familiar with different forms of writing: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, journalism. That's very important. And also keep a journal. Not so much, because it's good writing practice. Although it is, but more because it's a wonderful source of story starters.

- Ann M. Martin

source: Source: www.glamour.com

topic: Couple, Writing, Kids, Non Fiction

Without books we're a very uneducated society. Think of the places books have taken us, the people we've been introduced to (fiction or non-fiction) and how books have allowed us to broaden our vocabulary.

- Tom Robinson

topic: Book, Taken, Thinking, Non Fiction

I honestly believe that everything I know about the writing of non-fiction (or writing) could be engraved on the head of a pin with a garden hoe.

- M. F. K. Fisher

topic: Believe, Writing, Garden, Engraved, Non Fiction

My non-fiction films are pretty much fiction, or at least close... It's all "movies" for me. I never have searched for a subject. They always just come along. They never come by way of decision-making. They just haunt me. I can't get rid of them. I did not invite them.

- Werner Herzog

topic: Decision, Way, Fiction, Non Fiction

I don't think people are averse to thinking about things in a deep way, but we have limited time and opportunity to think about things in a deep way. I think that's why there is an appetite for non-fiction - it gives people the opportunity to reexamine ordinary experience and be smarter about it.

- Malcolm Gladwell

source: Interview with Donna Bowman, www.avclub.com. November 17, 2008.

topic: Opportunity, Thinking, People, Limited Time, Non Fiction

I write my first draft by hand, at least for fiction. For non-fiction, I write happily on a computer, but for fiction I write by hand, because I'm trying to achieve a kind of thoughtless state, or an unconscious instinctive state. I'm not reading what I write when I wrote. It's an unconscious outpouring that's a mess, and it's many, many steps away from anything anyone would want to read. Creating that way seems to generate the most interesting material for me to work with, though.

- Jennifer Egan

topic: Reading, Writing, Creating, Non Fiction

I'm a novelist, I'm not an activist. I'm not a non-fiction writer, I'm not a journalist. I'm not a foodie, I'm not even really an animal person, or an environmentalist. I did the best I could with this, but it's not who I am.

- Jonathan Safran Foer

topic: Animal, Who I Am, Novelists, Non Fiction

The most difficult part of writing a book is not devising a plot which will captivate the reader. It's not developing characters the reader will have strong feelings for or against. It is not finding a setting which will take the reader to a place he or she as never been. It is not the research, whether in fiction or non-fiction. The most difficult task facing a writer is to find the voice in which to tell the story.

- Randy Pausch

topic: Strong, Book, Character, Devising, Non Fiction

Inspiration comes from so many sources. Music, other fiction, the non-fiction I read, TV shows, films, news reports, people I know, stories I hear, misheard words or lyrics, dreams

- Trudi Canavan

source: "Origin Series: Empire Actor Adam Rodriguez". Interview with Robert Piper, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. November 16, 2015.

topic: Dream, Inspiration, Tv Shows, Non Fiction

In, 1950, at the age, 19 I dropped out of St. George William College in Montreal, as it then was, and sailed for England on the Franconia. Foolishly, no arrogantly, believing I could put Canada and its picayune problems behind me, never dreaming it would become the raw material of most of my fiction and non-fiction. Or that I would care so deeply about its surviving intact.

- Mordecai Richler

topic: Dream, Believe, College, Non Fiction

I have long admired the visceral storytelling and moral complexity of John Vaillant’s brilliant non-fiction about humankind’s tragically ambivalent relationship with the natural world. Now he brings his abundant literary gifts to a debut novel set in a very real borderland in which human beings are themselves treated like animals. The Jaguar’s Children is a beautifully rendered lament for an imperiled culture and the brave lives that would preserve it. You should read it.

- John Burnham Schwartz

topic: Children, Real, Animal, Jaguars, Debut

I do, however, feel reasonably strongly the sense that the job of a piece of argumentative scholarly non-fiction is not the same as the job of a piece of fiction.

- China Mieville

topic: Jobs, Fiction, Pieces, Scholarly, Non Fiction

With non-fiction writing I feel like I'm confined and driven by what actually happened. That makes the "plot". So it's a process of getting all of my notes typed up, then scanning through the notes, trying to extract or find certain vignettes that seem like they might write well - that might have a potential for good energy, shape, etc. And then at some point I start stringing these together, keeping an eye on the word count.

- George Saunders

topic: Eye, Writing, Trying, Good Energy, Vignettes

I've always felt that no one understands why some books of non-fiction endure and some don't, because there's not much understanding among many non-fiction writers that the narrative is terribly important.

- Robert Caro

source: "The Round Table: Fiction, Biography And The Use Of Power". Interview with Kurt Vonnegut, www.robertcaro.com. 1999.

topic: Non Fiction

In my opinion there are two basic questions that any writer tries to answer. "What is?" is the question non-fiction asks. "What if?" is the question fiction asks. That's the question I'm more interested in.

- Patrick Rothfuss

topic: Two, What If, Trying, Non Fiction

I don't write non-fiction because I get bored. Some of my writing is autobiographical, but not the way readers imagine. I use my memory of settings, events and people. I weave history into my stories, but my narratives are made up.

- Sefi Atta

source: Source: www.percontra.net

topic: Memories, Writing, Bored, Non Fiction

I came to fantasy fairly late. For some ten years, I had been happily writing fiction and non-fiction for adults. But I always loved fantasy, whether for adults or young people; and at that particular point in my life, I wanted to try it, to understand it, as part of the process of learning to be a writer. The results were beyond anything I could have foreseen. As I've said often and elsewhere, it was the most creative and liberating experience of my life.

- Lloyd Alexander

source: Source: www.teachingbooks.net

topic: Writing, Years, People, Foreseen, Non Fiction

I like to think that one of things I've done with non-fiction since the very beginning is to find new ways of telling true stories.

- Errol Morris

source: Source: collider.com

topic: Thinking, Fiction, Stories, Non Fiction

There is really no fiction or non-fiction; there is only narrative. One mode of perception has no greater claim on the truth than the other; that the distance has perhaps to do with distance - narrative distance - from the characters; it has to do with the kind of voice that is talking, but it certainly hasn't to do with the common distribution between fact and imagination.

- E. L. Doctorow

source: Source: theharvardadvocate.com

topic: Distance, Character, Voice, Non Fiction

Any documentary; any capturing of a non-fiction event, is a hyper-realistic condensation of reality that hopefully reveals an emotional truth. It's never the actual literal truth of an event.

- Joe Berlinger

source: Source: povmagazine.com

topic: Reality, Emotional, Events, Hyper, Condensation

When I read any book, if it's really good I get lost in the writing whether it's fiction or non-fiction. I'm in the story not thinking about who wrote it.

- Jeff Feuerzeig

source: Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

topic: Book, Writing, Thinking, Non Fiction

[I like to read] spiritual books, non-fiction, fiction, I have my moods.

- MC Lyte

source: Source: uproxx.com

topic: Spiritual, Book, Fiction, Non Fiction

I like writing non-fiction - and when you pick a [non-fiction] subject, it saves you the hassle of coming up with a plot.

- Richard Hell

source: Source: pitchfork.com

topic: Hassle, Non Fiction

I'm always looking for context in which people tell stories. In "Fight Club" it's these support groups for dying people, and then in "Choke" it's 12-step recovery groups. In one novel it's artists' colonies, in another novel it's a diary form that submariners' wives typically keep so that when their husband comes back from serving on a submarine they have an accounting of their spouse's time. So I'm always looking for, number one, a non-fiction context - because you can tell a more outrageous story if you use a non-fiction form.

- Chuck Palahniuk

source: "Chuck Palahnuik On 'Choke'". Interview with Cole Smithey, www.colesmithey.com. September 24, 2008.

topic: Support Groups, 12 Step, 12 Step Recovery, Non Fiction

The effect of reading literary non-fiction that matters most to me is when the coin drops, and this happens in the company of the great, mercuric, encyclopedic minds: Empson, Kenneth Burke, Northrop Frye.

- Paul Fry

topic: Reading, Mind, Fiction, Kenneth, Non Fiction

It is simply much easier to infuse life, feeling, and higher truth into a novel than a non-fiction work, to find the license to write truth without being wedded to fact.

- Jon Weisman

source: Source: www.guernicamag.com

topic: Writing, Feelings, Fiction, Non Fiction

There is, in my mind, no higher compliment to pay a non-fiction book than to say it reads like a novel.

- Jon Weisman

source: Source: www.guernicamag.com

topic: Book, Mind, Fiction, Non Fiction

History - the non-fiction version - must inform the fiction to make it truthful; too much of it and your genres are colliding.

- Jon Weisman

source: Source: www.guernicamag.com

topic: Fiction, Too Much, Truthful, Non Fiction

I spend most of my time reading non-fiction of all sorts. Then poetry. Then fiction to blurb. Then fiction I want to read.

- Jim Shepard

source: Source: therumpus.net

topic: Reading, Fiction, Want, Non Fiction

Often the lines that define the traditional European arrangement of fiction, non-fiction, history, etc. are not useful. These lines can distort the world we, people who look like me, live in - and by the world, I mean our personal experience of it.

- Jamaica Kincaid

source: "Jamaica Kincaid: Does Truth Have a Tone?". Interview with Lauren K. Alleyne, www.guernicamag.com. June 17, 2013.

topic: Mean, People, Etc, Non Fiction

Autobiographical writings, essays, interviews, various other things... All the non-fiction prose I wanted to keep, that was the idea behind this collected volume, which came out about few years ago. I didn't think of Winter Journal, for example, as an autobiography, or a memoir. What it is is a literary work, composed of autobiographical fragments, but trying to attain, I hope, the effect of music.

- Paul Auster

source: Interview with Nathalie Cochoy, Sophie Vallas, transatlantica.revues.org. March 2014.

topic: Writing, Winter, Thinking, Writing Essays, Literary Works

For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

- Iris Chang

topic: Writing, People, Liberty, Non Fiction

My house is filled with books, most of which I have read, some of which I intend to eventually get to. I'm always reading at least one work of fiction and one work of non-fiction simultaneously. Whatever mood I'm in, there's always a book nearby to suit it.

- Rachel Nichols

topic: Book, Reading, House, Non Fiction

I tend to read non-fiction.

- Gary Oldman

topic: Fiction, Non Fiction

I teach a non-fiction writing class at New York University, and one of my great pleasures is deciding on the syllabus.

- Susan Orlean

topic: New York, Writing, Class, Syllabus, Non Fiction

The subject for a lot of non-fiction is very emotional, but if you read it, it's the most boring, dry stuff. I wanted 'Torn Apart' to be extremely accessible and readable.

- James Patterson

topic: Emotional, Fiction, Torn Apart, Non Fiction

A non-fiction writer pretty much has the shape of the figure in front of him or her and goes about refining it. A work of non-fiction is not as difficult to write as a work of fiction, but it's not as satisfying in the end.

- Chaim Potok

topic: Writing, Fiction, Shapes, Non Fiction

I have two pairs of reading glasses. One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction. I've read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it's the same.

- Steven Wright

topic: Reading, Glasses, Two, Reading Fiction, Reading Glasses

Expand the definition of 'reading' to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It's the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won't read shark books forever.

- Jon Scieszka

source: "National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Must Go!" by Jon Scieszka, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 18, 2010.

topic: Book, Reading, Adventure, Graphic Novels, Pleasure Of Reading

Amy Rapp, my producing partner, and I are drawn to character-driven material. We're developing and producing movies and TV, fiction and non-fiction, studio and independent, broadcast and cable, theatre, and web so our slate is really diverse.

- Meredith Vieira

source: "Interview with Meredith Vieira – Executive Producer of The Woman Who Wasn’t There". Interview with Melissa Silverstein, www.indiewire.com. January 8, 2013.

topic: Character, Independent, Theatre, Producing Movies, Non Fiction

I do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school.

- Daniel Tammet

topic: Teenager, School, Thinking, Non Fiction

The best way to tell people about climate change is through non-fiction. There's a vast literature of outstanding writing on the subject.

- Ian Mcewan

source: "Ian McEwan: 'It's good to get your hands dirty a bit'". Interview with Nicholas Wroe, www.theguardian.com. March 5, 2010.

topic: Writing, People, Climate, Non Fiction

The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.

- Richard Stallman

source: Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.31, Lulu.com

topic: Practice, Ideas, Fiction, Ancient Times, Non Fiction

I'd probably be a super wealthy guy if I had sat around writing songs and getting them placed like everyone else I know. But I write songs about people or after I meet them and they're somewhat biographical - they're fiction but also non-fiction.

- Nile Rodgers

topic: Song, Writing, People, Non Fiction

In "The Myth of Sisyphus", his most important non-fiction work, Albert Camus suggested that if we believed what most people claim to be the purpose of life, we would feel compelled to commit suicide. If, however, we accept that life has no purpose we would be inclined to soldier on in a cussed, stoical manner like Sisyphus, endlessly pushing his rock up a hill only to see it roll down again.

- Philip French

source: "Feathered frenzy" by Philip French, www.theguardian.com. December 10, 2005.

topic: Suicide, Rocks, People, Myth Of Sisyphus, Non Fiction