Phil Klay Quotes

It's funny with fiction - once you cut something, it hasn't happened anymore.

It's all about letting the story take over.

I don't do nonfiction anymore. Eventually, you just feel constrained by the facts. You want to go where the words take you, and people's actual lives don't always conform. And you can't know them that well.

I've tried very hard and I've never found any resemblance between the people I know and the people in my novels.

When you write fiction, you can sort of invent more but also pack it with emotions that are very pertinent to you. Whereas with nonfiction, you have to be as factual as possible but also hopefully - also bring... emotional relevance to the piece.

Part of the reason I wanted to write a novel was that in fiction I could do something that's difficult to do in real life, which is to dwell on the stark details of the experience without really needing to create that narrative of redemption.

I'm a writer of fiction. I try to write about my time, but it's dangerous if I'm seen as an investigative writer. I manipulate and change and control.

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.

Sometimes journalists ask me, "What's the message?" There is no message. I think that fiction should not be trying to give messages. Just tell a story.

I've been falsely accused of drawing too much from real life. But I am a petty thief - I take little things. And, I mean, I can hardly write 10 words before I start to make things up. I start to invent, because that's what I want to do. I'm running away to an invented place.

I'd rather let the fiction speak for itself and I don't want to write fiction that tells people how to feel, and I don't want to be judgmental in the fiction.

Sometimes I read a script and it's obvious from early on that it's one where the suspension of disbelief has to develop strongly from page one. Some are more reality-based.

I love telling stories. Creating a character, a world, a whole universe out of nothing. That part I can't get enough of.

I enjoy receiving and giving realistic fiction, for both children and adults, with strong characters, beautiful language, and humane visions.

I used to be a freelance journalist, so I had to write fast, but I always found writing nonfiction constraining. I like the freedom of fiction, where I get to invent everything, and tidy, conclusive endings are within my control.

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.

I just want to be told a story, and I want to believe I'm living that story, and I don't give a thought to influences or method or any other writerly concerns.

The great thing about using the past is that it gives you the most colossal freedom to invent. The research is necessary, of course, but no one writes a novel to dramatically illustrate what everybody already knows.

One of the more depressing things about reading your fiction 25 years later, or 10 years later, is you realize the only things going on are things you made go on. Strange and interesting and new and wonderful things don't happen. It's the book you wrote; that's all.

Watch out, or I'm liable to put you in a story.

My stories include realistic fiction and fantasy.

I think once you write fiction, you put it out, and it can be interpreted in a variety of ways, some of which are going to be shocking to the writer.

Being a novelist, you can roam around with a story and indulge yourself.

I should say, I don't write about myself or my life. So for me, in fiction, it's always been about what I can dream up, that feels far away from me.

The things that I'm interested in directing are fiction, because then you're not married to a particular reality.