Hilton Als Quotes

I prefer writing originals.

Write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

I love to write what I see and what I do and what I experience, and I like to see if people can relate to that. I don't know if I am as good at making up a story in my head that has no truth to it, so that is a challenge for me.

I make it all up, and all of it is true.

Write your own stories.

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.

Fiction is a house with many stately mansions, but also one in which it is wise, at least sometimes, to swing from the chandeliers.

The great liberty of the fictional writer is to let the imagination out of the traces and see it gallop off over the horizon.

I wish I didn't have ever to sign my long name on the cover of a book, and I wish I could write a story that would seem absolutely true to the child who hears it and to myself.

Fiction is such a world of freedom, it's wonderful. If you want someone to fly, they can fly.

Basically, I just write whatever story grabs me rather than considering the genre.

That's one thing about fiction: you can make the world be the way you think it should be.

In journalism I can only tell what happened. In fiction, I can show it.

Even though writing articles relies completely on truth, you still must tell an interesting story. You can't worry about people knowing who you are and whether or not they want to read your stories.

Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.

There's actually nothing interesting about me except what I write.

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.

Being an author is fun. It's a great job, because I can stay up as late as I want, and if I feel like taking the day off, I do it. Plus, I get to make up silly stories and draw pictures all day.

I write from my imagination, not from what I've read in books or seen on TV or to make money. I wrote from an idea I was passionate about.

Surely the job of fiction is to actually tell the truth. It's a paradox that's at the heart of any kind of storytelling.

Actors spend most of their time out of work, so I actually spend more time making furniture. The thing about furniture that's much better than acting is that it's just me. There's no director, no script - the concept is me, unless a client wants something.

There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.

A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.

Write what you know.

My favorite thing is being able to follow my inspiration, and the freedom of being a writer is hard to beat.