Virginia Woolf Quotes

There is a real connection between Philosopy and fiction.

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

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.

Fiction is a house with many stately mansions, but also one in which it is wise, at least sometimes, to swing from the chandeliers.

First of all, writing at best - certainly fiction writing - more and more I think is magic.

All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened.

Writers can take offense when someone asks what's real or autobiographical in our work because, to us, that's not what counts. The bits taken from life are tiny scales on the dragon's tail - what about that whole beautiful writhing, fire-breathing dragon?

Novels are such mysterious and amorphous and tender things.

For me, literature is a complex game, both mental and concrete, which is acted out in a physical manner on the page.

As writers, it is our job not only to imagine, but to witness.

Literature is the question minus the answer.

I've always loved writing, and the impulse for me is storytelling. I don't sit down and think: 'What political message can I sell?' I love the creativity of it.

Novels will remain my meat and potatoes, what sustain me imaginatively.

Anyone who has set out to invent a purely imaginary story knows that the whole thing is fantasy, from beginning to end; there must be a sense of magic created about the most restrained of naturalism.

My dream remains to inform and entertain through fiction in the form of novels and movies that compete in the marketplace of ideas.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I'm still awake. I can continue yesterday's dream today, something you can't normally do in everyday life.

Stories are not explanations of the world we live in. Science does that, and math does that. Our obligation as fiction writers is to enhance the mysteries.

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

When I set out to write 'Sanctus,' all I wanted to do was craft a piece of high quality entertainment.

The function of a book or a poem or a story is to delight, to enchant, to beguile.

Like all novelists, I'm interested in the filters between reality and the imagination.

I'm a fan of creative writing and telling stories.

Sci-fi's great, but you don't have to hit people over the head with it when you're making a social comment. It just inherently exists within the fabric of the story.

Fiction allows us to both evade truth and to approach it - or, rather, it's fiction that allows us to 'construct' our world. It's haunted by the unimaginable and the unspeakable.

Sometimes good stories are created while documenting dreams.