Marissa Moss Quotes

For me, one of the hallmarks of a really great book is that I'm seeing it in my head while I'm reading.

Good fiction makes me turn off all the other parts of my brain, so that I become quiet and submissive, entirely at the mercy of the work at hand.

When you get right down to it, there's something uniquely satisfying in being gripped by a great plot, in begrudging whatever real-world obligations might prevent you from finding out what happens next.

You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author's world.

I write for the same reason I read: to find out what's going to happen.

I want the reader to turn the page and keep on turning until the end.

I'm writing for my ideal reader, for somebody who's willing to take the time, who's willing to get lost in a new world, who's willing to do their part. But then I have to do my part and give them a sound and a voice that they believe in enough to keep going.

Stories have a special way of putting us inside the people, inside the boots of the soldiers. You're absorbed in a way a documentary or nonfiction can't do for you.

One of my greatest pleasures is falling into a story someone else has written.

I want to tell a story that makes the reader always want to see what will happen next.

I'm a fan of great storytelling.

I think I'm always drawn to a good story.

I always loved having the chance to disappear in a story. I always was kind of obsessed with that.

A story invites both writer and reader into a kind of superficial ease: we want to slide along, pleasingly entertained, lost in the fictional dream.

A well-written novel, the most immersive of all forms of storytelling, should command your full attention and belief.

Fiction basically is a form of gossip where you want to enter other people's lives, the lives of people you don't know, and you want to know what's going to happen to them.

All I wanted to do was read, to be told stories. Stories were full of excitement and emotions and characters that entertained and often inspired.

People want good stories.

Literary novelists who have a strong handle on plot are often characterized as good vacation reads because they manage to transport you elsewhere, away from the petty facts of ordinary life.

The best part of watching any show is that feeling of being sucked in. If I'm watching 'Breaking Bad,' there is something compelling about Walter White.

My writing could be the most beautiful or important piece of prose, but it means nothing if it's boring, if people aren't listening or reading. I think transporting someone, putting them in a story for a few hours, taking them out of their worlds, is what I always strive to do.

People just love stories.

I think one of the reasons that I like fiction versus nonfiction is that I myself can kind of disappear from the story.

I never set out to write literature; I set out to tell stories. And some of my work may be very raunchy and very bloodthirsty - but life, for me, is a violent thing.

My novels are certainly more exciting than my own life.