Sheila Heti Quotes

Fiction is very important to me. It's what I do, it's what I do with my life.

I think the plasticity of the novel is its greatest challenge. There are no rules; there is no necessary form. You can know what you want it to be, or do, and still not know how to write it. There are endless possibilities, infinite choices. What voice should it be in? What events to start with? What characters will be part of it?

People think you have to go through something to write about it, and you absolutely do not. You can write about, like, a shoe. It's a story.

Writing is so fun precisely because if you take out the right adjective, the readers can decide what kind of book is in their hands. Suspension of disbelief should not be mandatory in contemporary writing.

I view myself as a fiction writer who just happens to write nonfiction. I think I look at the world through a fiction-writer's eyes.

My instinct is to absolutely recoil when talking about writing in a mechanistic way. Nothing could be dumber than writing a film or TV script based on prescriptions, on other peoples' ideas of what character should be.

I'm a magpie in my fiction, taking whatever looks shiny and curious to line the nest of my story.

Playing with different genres and perspectives and ways of telling stories is one of the perks of being a novelist, but at the same time, I want precision. And in order to be precise about stuff, you have to get personal. Symbolism is very boring.

When I am writing anything in general, I just want to tell the story that exists in my head; I don't try to write a parable or make a point.

I have seen too many screenwriters of promise become formula addicts and slaves to stop watch structure. Spend that time watching movies, reading screenplays, reading plays, and most importantly - write from your gut.

No matter how close to personal experience a story might be, inevitably you are going to get to a part that isn't yours and, actually, whether it happened or not becomes irrelevant. It is all about choosing the right words.

I've tried very hard and I've never found any resemblance between the people I know and the people in my novels.

Whether it's fiction or nonfiction, writing takes me to another world.

Stories surge up out of nowhere, and if they feel compelling, you follow them. You let them unfold inside you and see where they are going to lead.

Fiction writing is great. You can make up almost anything.

A good novel is a good novel, pointe finale. And I think what I'm writing is exactly that.

Being a fiction writer makes you someone who works with irresponsibility.

Everyone else thinks I'm a nonfiction writer. I think it's because my nonfiction is easier to find. But I write both in equal measure. I love writing fiction because I can totally lose myself, and I get to make up the rules of the world that I'm writing.

When you do fiction, it is your imagination you have put out there.

As a writer of fiction, lying is the central thing to all books.

I think I do more fiction than autobiography.

The plot is not very important to me, though a novel must have one, of course. It's just a line to hang the washing on.

So much emotion goes into writing fiction.

I'm always trying to make something that is impossible to film. Why would somebody just read a novel when they can see it on TV or in the cinema? I really have to think of the things fiction can do that film can't and play to the strengths of the novel. With a novel, you can get right inside somebody's head.

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