Nick Harkaway Quotes

Fiction novels, that's my game.

I'm not a biographer, I'm a novelist.

I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.

You start as an audience member and create a world you're interested in, and then you move into the telling of those stories, bringing what has interested you as an audience member.

A novel wouldn't be a book if there weren't some flights of fancy on the part of the author, stopping time to examine things, or to tell a joke.

In any genre you're working in, you can always find a way to tell a particular kind of story. I love fantasy; I love science fiction. I love all kinds of fiction, in fact.

I enjoy thinking myself into other times and places. I don't like some of the conventions of the 'historical novel', but I think there's a way of doing it that has a lot of merit.

The world of fiction is a sovereign world that comes to life in the author's head and follows the rules of art, of literature. And that is the major difference that is reflected in the form of the work, in its language and its plot. An author invents every aspect of a fiction, every detail.

I think that one of the things you have to do to become a storyteller is spend a lot of time reading stories.

Don't ever let the other stuff get in the way of your inherent skills as a kick-butt storyteller. Move the reader, make them happy and sad and excited and scared. Make them stare into space after they've put the book down, thinking about the tale that's become a part of them.

Granted there are only seven stories in the universe. And I agree with that. But give me a great variation of those stories. And literate.

I read a lot of sci-fi when I was younger. Loved it from the literary point of view.

They say truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, but there's such a thing as believability when you're writing a novel.

For me, the best moments in storytelling are the ones where I feel I'm discovering something.

I love to read the kind of books I write. Genre-breaking. Fresh-concept. World-building. My all-time top three authors would have to be Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Harris, and Pat Conroy.

I'm really not interested in writing about science at all. I mean, I try to get the information right, the details right. But fiction isn't good at conveying information: It's good at telling stories about people in interesting situations.

Writers can express ideas and emotions that are important to them but have no other means of expression. Some of these ideas may be fantastic, and some of the emotions may be given clearer voice in fantastic fiction.

I love to read, and TV seemed more like a good book, with these incredible series unfolding like chapters in a novel.

I keep writing stories that I might want to bring to life one day.

I am really interested in storytelling in general - nothing is off-limits!

As writers, our job is to try to create, in a fake space, something that feels true. That's just straight-up fiction: Invent a character that doesn't exist; make them seem like they do.

The historical background is one of the easier aspects of writing a novel. Far more difficult is dreaming up the smaller, character-based scenes, scenes that rise entirely from one's own imagination.

The thing about Drew Goddard and Mike Schur is that they are legit geniuses, and they love storytelling. They love creating worlds, love messing with the audience; they love doing things that we don't expect. To get to be a part of that is too good to be true.

I consider myself a better storyteller than a Dungeon Master.

I'm not interested in writing overtly autobiographical songs. I would rather explore interesting stories. I like the idea of the songs being evocative and distinctive, so I have in my mind the atmosphere that a film could evoke. I like to think of them existing in their own little world.