John McCain Quotes

But even gold is not everything: and only a fanatic, and a rather foolish fanatic, would say that this style of fiction summed up and exhausted all the good that fiction could give and do.

I never thought I could write fiction.

Size has nothing to do with literature. All legs are long enough to touch the ground, and all books are big enough to fill their covers.

I ain't no author, man... my writing skills are not of 'New York Times' best-seller quality, trust and believe it ain't. My vocabulary ain't.

I was never a good journalist, because I would make things up. A lot of people frowned on that, which is why I ended up in fiction.

Novels are not about expressing yourself, they're about something beautiful, funny, clever and organic. Self-expression? Go and ring a bell in a yard if you want to express yourself.

A good novel doesn't just transcend the boundaries of its target market - it knows nothing about target markets.

A book can be wonderful and powerful and accessible and artful all at the same time.

Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

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

I think you can do a lot with fiction, and in some cases you can say even more in fiction than you can in straight-up documentary journalism.

That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.

What's really fun is to write under different names.

The best thing about being a fiction writer is that where the truth is inconvenient, I could veer away.

They say that every writer, they write about himself, and I think that to a certain extent that is true. But also we are creators of fiction.

The novel has always been the form that incorporates other forms. For me, it has always been the ultimate medium.

I didn't have any particular talent for fiction. I took a class in college.

I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.

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

A good novel is worth more then the best scientific study.

I don't read much nonfiction because the nonfiction I do read always seems to be so badly written. What I enjoy about fiction - the great gift of fiction - is that it gives language an opportunity to happen.

Somebody once said to me, 'If you want to be understood, don't write fiction.'

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

Fiction writing is just an excuse to go discover interesting things.