Christopher Priest Quotes

Literature is the stringing together of pictures in words.

I don't think in terms of optimism and pessimism when writing a story. I am telling a story.

I don't think any good book is based on factual experience. Bad books are about things the writer already knew before he wrote them.

I don't much believe in the idea of characters. I write with words, that is all. Whether those words are put in the mouth of this or that character does not matter to me.

For myself, the only way I know how to make a book is to construct it like a collage: a bit of dialogue here, a scrap of narrative, an isolated description of a common object, an elaborate running metaphor which threads between the sequences and holds different narrative lines together.

When writing, I'm not thinking about war, even if I'm writing about it. I'm thinking about sentences, rhythm and story. So the focus, when I'm working, even if it's on a story that takes place at war, is not on bombs or bullets. It's on the story.

I've always written about other artists, or I write my thoughts down, but I've never written a story.

A novel is not a rant.

A short story is one idea; a novel is a whole soup of them.

I don't write a lot of fiction.

Eventually, I just want to write wavy little short stories.

Writers don't write about people they know. They write what they know about people.

When you're doing a concept album, it's easy. It's like a movie: you already know what you're dealing with.

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.

A notion for a story is for me a confluence of real events, historical perhaps, or from my own memory to create an exciting fusion.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

I feel like my brain is more geared towards a novel than it is to a movie.

I don't care whether the story is real or fantastical. I tell the story that needs to be told.

I like terrific writing, but I also like a terrific story. My favorite books have both, and they're by contemporary, commercial American writers.

As a writer, I absorb stories, allow them to churn within my own head and heart - often for years - until I find a way of telling them that fits both my time and temperament.

I don't think I could write a straight drama.

Those of us with this ancient compulsion to tell stories sometimes start with a single kernel of something.

What you compose with is neither here nor there, you compose with words, or you compose with stone plants and trees, or you compose with events; the Sheriff's officer, or whatever.

To me the most important thing is a good story, though I know how cliche that sounds.

I've tried to tell a story. For me, it is the best one.