I think that pretty much every form of fiction (I’d include fantasy, obviously) can actually be a real escape from places where you feel bad, and from bad places. It can be a safe place you go, like going on holiday, and it can be somewhere that, w...
Science fiction is a dialogue, a tennis match, in which the Idea is volleyed from one side of the net to the other. Ridiculous to say that someone 'stole' an idea: no, no, a thousand times no. The point is the volley, and how it's carried, and what s...
It is not the task of a writer to 'tell all,' or even to decide what to leave in, but to decide what to leave out. Whatever remains, that meager sum of this profane division, that's the bastard chimera we call a 'story.' I am not building, but cuttin...
I read and write for character. If I like and can relate to the characters in a story I can enjoy any kind of story. I also want something with a definitive plot—you know, beginning, middle and end--that has forward motion. I don’t like series bo...
An author's extraliterary utterance (blunt information), prenovel or postnovel, may infiltrate journalism; it cannot touch the novel itself. Fiction does not invent out of a vacuum, but it ; and what it invents is, first, the fabric and cadence of la...
To me, the best, if not the only function of imaginative writing, is to lead the human imagination outward, to take it into the vast external cosmos, and away from all that introversion and introspection, that morbidly exaggerated prying into one's o...
The marriage of reason and nightmare that dominated the 20th century has given birth to an ever more ambiguous world. Across the communications landscape move the spectres of sinister technologies and the dreams that money can buy. Thermo-nuclear wea...
Science fiction, as a genre is fundamentally about ideas. It's about asking an impossible question, "What if...?" and building a story out of the answer. Romance on the other hand, is fundamentally about relationships. The hypothetical romance transp...
I think politics is deadly to write about, frankly. If you have a political agenda and you set out to write a novel to prove that, say, capitalism should crumble, then it's going to be a really bad novel. Very few people have been able to deal with p...
Literary fiction and poetry are real marginalized right now. There's a fallacy that some of my friends sometimes fall into, the ol' "The audience is stupid. The audience only wants to go this deep. Poor us, we're marginalized because of TV, the great...
A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who ha...
For some, vampires are still firmly in the 'evil, scary' column. However, in recent decades, vampires also run the gamut from evil to morally ambiguous all the way to fangless and vegetarian. I think part of their appeal lies in their versatility. Va...
The principle of art is to pause, not bypass. The principles of true art is not to portray, but to evoke. This requires a moment of pause--a contract with yourself through the object you look at or the page you read. In that moment of pause, I think ...
Donnie: [in a letter] Dear Roberta Sparrow, I have reached the end of your book and there are so many things that I need to ask you. Sometimes I'm afraid of what you might tell me. Sometimes I'm afraid that you'll tell me that this is not a work of f...
The Wolf: Strip. Jules: All the way? The Wolf: To your bare ass. Vincent: Is this necessary? The Wolf: Yes. You know what you guys look like? Jules: What? The Wolf: Like a couple of guys who just blew off somebody's head! [to Jimmie] The Wolf: Now Ji...
Jules: Yolanda? How we doin, baby? Yolanda: I gotta go pee! I want to go home. Jules: Just hang in there, baby. You're doing' great. Ringo's proud of you and so am I. It's almost over. Tell her you're proud of her. Pumpkin: I'm proud of you, Honey Bu...
Butch: So we cool? Marsellus: Yeah, we cool. Two things. Don't tell nobody about this. This shit is between me, you, and Mr. Soon-To-Be-Living-The-Rest-of-His-Short-Ass-Life-In-Agonizing-Pain Rapist here. It ain't nobody else's business. Two: you lea...
Butch: Did you bring the watch? Fabienne: I believe so. Butch: You believe so? You "believe" so? What the fuck does that mean? You either did, or you didn't! Fabienne: Then I did. Butch: Are you sure? Fabienne: [shakes her head] No... [a pause] Butch...
Vincent: Remember, I just got back from Amsterdam. Lance: Am I a nigger? Are we in Inglewood? No... You're in my home. White people who know the difference between good shit and bad shit, this is the house they come to. Now, my shit, I'll take the Pe...
Marvin: [cowering and shivering in the corner after seeing Brett get shot down by Jules and Vincent] Oh, fuck! I'm fucked. Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck! Vincent: Is he a friend of yours? Jules: Hmm? Oh, Vincent, Marvin. Marvin, Vincent. Vincent: [as Marvin con...
Professor Jules Hilbert: No, why did you change the book? Kay Eiffel: Lots of reasons. I realized I just couldn't do it. Professor Jules Hilbert: Because he's real? Kay Eiffel: Because it's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die and th...
