China Mieville Quotes

A lot of people think the best work I've done was nonfiction - the 'Brothers and Keepers' book. But I think of myself as a fiction writer. And I think, if my work is put in perspective, all the books would be a continual questioning of what's true and what's not true, what's documented and what's not documented.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?

Most books aren't pure nonfiction or fiction.

I usually dread writing non-fiction. I don't feel comfortable or confident writing essays and the like.

I would be rejected if I submitted any of my novels as romance novels.

I've read only fiction, so I don't know anything actual.

I obviously read and adore traditional fiction. I teach traditional fiction; I also teach all kinds of not-so-traditional fiction.

I want prose fiction to be recognized as that, and I'm not interested in writing as it becomes more personal.

Basically, I think of fiction and non-fiction as different ways of engaging with the world. You reach a point where you feel you have said all you possibly can, in reportage or a review essay or a reflection on history, which 'From the Ruins of Empire' was.

Maybe I will write a memoir, perhaps I'll do some essays, or maybe I will write a mystery story.

I make a rod for my own back because people see my novels as quasi documentaries. But it is never history that's the main event of my books. It's my characters.

I have no interest in non-fiction. I don't read it and don't watch it and don't write it, other than a little journalistic column.

I'm a fast writer, and crime novels are easy to do. It's much harder to write a 1,000 word article, where everything has to be 100 per cent correct.

Fiction isn't memoir and memoir isn't fiction.

I like short stories.

In Bosnian, there's no distinction in literature between fiction and nonfiction; there's no word describing that.

When you write non-fiction, you sit down at your desk with a pile of notebooks, newspaper clippings, and books and you research and put a book together the way you would a jigsaw puzzle.

To me there's no difference between a book of stories and a novel - they're just slightly different shapes.

I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, which means I had a lot of formal training in reading.

I was an English major in college, and then I went to graduate school in English at the University of North Carolina for three years.

Anyone can write an academic piece directed at other academics. To write something that delivers an argument and a gripping storyline to someone's granny or eight-year-old takes the highest quality of your powers.

To be interested in short stories, you have to be interested in fiction as an art form.

Novel writing should never be confused with journalism. Unfortunately, in the case of Primary Colors, a fair number of journalists confused.

In the end, all worlds, whether they're set in the future or in New Jersey of today, are fictions. Sure, you don't got to do too much work to build a mundane world, but don't get it twisted: you still got to do some work.

I think it's hard to have a full-time job and write fiction, but for essays, you need to be in the world.