Gene Wolfe Quotes

I used to be more of a purist about literature. I thought, 'If it's a really propulsive story, then maybe there's something unliterary about it.'

I am in the interesting position of being sometimes skimmed by the critics and called literature and sometimes called historical fiction.

The novel is a highly corrupt medium, after all - in the end the vast majority of them simply aren't that great, and are destined to be forgotten.

Literary fiction - if we must use the term - is not the plotless, meandering indulgence that its detractors would have you believe.

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

I'm not into high literature, but I think all my books are literate.

I read many wonderful novels, though I now find the idea of literary fiction obsolete.

Fiction needs writers and readers, and writers should cultivate both.

Most writers of entertainment fiction tend to receive controversial reviews.

I don't have a problem with many uses of the word genre, just certain ones. I have the most trouble when these labels are used to prevent discussion, to prevent a work from being taken seriously as literature. When we say "genre," we generally mean "something crappy," something that would be sold in an airport.

The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million, ... but they are, singly, as nothing without the posted presence of the watcher.

Novelists do not swing on the same pendulums as critics.

I don't think that books are wondrous, magical things that come from nowhere. It's important that a book has clues about where and how it was written.

A writer can be subjective, even digressive, or introspective and certainly judgmental. This is a simplification, of course, but as a general rule, it holds true.

Anne Carson and Angela Carter are folks I hold close to my heart because they have such unique ways of telling stories.

We're not just writers; we're readers probably more than anything else. That's how you learn how to write and how you learn to appreciate good writing: by reading.

The essential gesture of the contemporary novel is to get people to turn the page, to entertain them, and I hate that. I want a novel where the gesture is towards existential investigation on every page. That, to me, is thrilling.

I've immersed myself in reading more and more of American literature, but no editor has asked me to comment on Jonathan Franzen or Jennifer Egan. It is assumed I'm an expert on writers who need a little less suntan lotion at the beach.

There's nothing sacred about the book you've written. The Bible says there's safety in a multitude of counselors. The movie is the movie, and the book is the book. They're different critters, and each must stand on their own merits.

It may be time for serious literary novelists to take back some of the subject matter we abandoned to hack novelists and the movies.

It's nice when critics say 'Emperor of the Air' is an important book of stories.

I absolutely wasn't going to write a book if it was just going to be about punk.

Can fiction teach us? Absolutely. Fiction has the power to illustrate place, era, and atmosphere in vivid detail. But it is not Anthropology for Dummies.

Early influences included Lorrie Moore, Amy Hempel, Charles Baxter, Richard Ford, Alice Munro, Denis Johnson - writers who are important to me still and who I discovered through my teachers.

When I read interviews with people like Kevin Barry or Colin Barrett, who I hugely admire, they don't really seem to come up against the question of likeability even though their characters, in some instances, are really horrible.