Steven Brust Quotes

Fantasy is fantasy. It's fiction. It's not meant to be a textbook. I don't believe in letting research overwhelm the fiction. That's a danger of science fiction in particular, as opposed to fantasy. A lot of writers forget that what they're doing is supposed to be art.

I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.

Truth titillates the imagination far less than fiction.

I can create countries just as I can create the actions of my characters. That is why a lot of travel seems to me a waste of time.

When I'm writing about reality, I'm writing about death. When I'm writing fiction, I'm writing about life.

I just went and got an agent because I thought I can create my own world - you can't right your own life, but you can escape to a world where you can have control.

It's the imagination that is involved in sci-fi, and fantasy is what draws me to it. Stories, everything.

I had read tons of science fiction. I was fascinated by other worlds, other environments. For me, it was fantasy, but it was not fantasy in the sense of pure escapism.

I think that one of the things you have to do to become a storyteller is spend a lot of time reading stories.

Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner.

I'm really into the idea of telling stories. Everyone needs stories. Everyone needs to escape every once in a while.

If a fantasy, if a story can help you feel something, I think that's really cool.

Fiction makes your dreams come true, and, as a writer, fiction allows you to delve into the area of miracles.

I feel that entertainment happens when fact and fiction is balanced.

The great thing about writing is, if you don't like the world, we'll create a different one.

When you write, you want to get rid of the world, don’t you? Of course you do. When you’re writing, you’re creating your own worlds.

To present a whole world that doesn’t exist and make it seem real, we have to more or less pretend we’re polymaths. That’s just the act of all good writing.

It's not magic that takes us to another world - it's storytelling.

All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it.

There is a part of me that has to depend on fantasy, because if you can't be somewhat of a fantasy person, then you can't write

Writing is more about imagination than anything else. I fell in love with words. I fell in love with storytelling.

I don't think I wrote stories down when I was young, but I certainly made them up, perhaps sometimes losing track of the border between reality and make-believe.

Part of the beauty of fiction is that we come alive in a body that we don't own.

I've been falsely accused of drawing too much from real life. But I am a petty thief - I take little things. And, I mean, I can hardly write 10 words before I start to make things up. I start to invent, because that's what I want to do. I'm running away to an invented place.

Novels are make-believe and play for adults.