I felt Joyce was an influence on my fiction, but in a very general way, as a kind of inspiration and a model for the beauty of language.
Writing fiction has become a priestly business in countries that have lost their faith.
Because at bottom, I'm interested in fear, and in courage and cowardice and these are easier to get at through fiction, where you can enter people's heads.
It was actually a women's writing group I belonged to in graduate school that gave me the courage to move from poetry to fiction.
If critics of 'readable fiction' want literature to change the ways people dream, they need first to come down from the mountain and speak to the people.
I love working fictional characters into a piece of history. It plays to my strengths, which are characterization and dialogue, and assists me in my admitted weakness, plot.
I've been a lifelong horror fan, but at the same time, I would say 90 percent of my reading is biographies and nonfiction history.
I think any period in history can be adapted into interesting fiction, as long as you approach the actual history with respect.
Words have great cumulative power, but in the 21st century, a single image is much stronger. An image suggests the unvarnished truth. That is its power and its fiction.
I'm such a huge fan of fan fiction, to me it's a great way for readers to become writers. It's like putting the training wheels on for writing.
I would rather portray the hero if it's a really great film. All my favorite fictional film characters are heroes, such as in 'The Last of the Mohicans' and 'Robin Hood.'
As a kid, I didn't read a great deal of fiction, and I've forgotten most of what I did read.
I think that fiction is an excellent place for us to struggle with questions of good and evil, and humanity and inhumanity.
In terms of fiction, I'd rather go out and have a good time than read a book about someone having a good or bad time.
Writing is such a solitary thing, so it's nice, when I'm discouraged, to see people still have such faith in fiction.
It is such a luxury to open a new book that's highly recommended by friends - either an inspirational yet humorously self-deprecating memoir, or a page-turning piece of fiction.
One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.
The first lie of fiction is that the author gives some order to the chaos of life: chronological order, or whatever order the author chooses.
I love what I do, but it occurs to me I may have handed over a large portion of my life to fiction.
Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so slightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible.
I very rarely read any fiction. I love biographies; I read about all kinds of people. I love theology and some philosophy.
