I feel like some sort of fiction-writing hobo, jumping trains and always hoping I'll find a good place to start a fire in the next town. And I keep having these panicky episodes where I corner my husband and rant at him: 'I don't have anywhere to wri...
When I was growing up I loved reading historical fiction, but too often it was about males; or, if it was about females, they were girls who were going to grow up to be famous like Betsy Ross, Clara Barton, or Harriet Tubman. No one ever wrote about ...
There ́s a metaphor which I love: living like a drawing compass. As you know, one leg of the compass is static, rooted in a place. Meanwhile, the other leg draws a wide circle, constantly moving. Like that, my fiction as well. One part of it is root...
The resulting texts always took a narrative term, enigmatic at first but ultimately explicit and often premonitory. The semantic distribution of these basic elements diverted them from their original meaning, thus revealing their real significance. H...
We live in a Jesus haunted culture that is Biblically illiterate, and so unfortunately at this point in time, almost anything can pass for knowledge of the historical Jesus from notions that he was a a Cynic sage to ideas that he was a Gnostic guru t...
Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence. What was important was that the attempt to write stories kept her straight on the dividing line between truth and fiction. If she had not f...
Jules: Do you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in France? Brett: No. Jules: Tell him, Vincent. Vincent: Royale with cheese. Jules: Royale with cheese. Do you know why they call it a Royale with cheese? Brett: Because of the metric sy...
Jules: You remember Antoine Roccamora, half black, half Samoan, used to call him Tony Rocky Horror? Vincent: Yeah, maybe. Fat, right? Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call the brother fat, I mean he got a weight problem. What's the nigger gonna do? ...
[first title card] Title Card: pulp /'p&lp/ n. 1. A soft, moist, shapeless mass of matter. Title Card: 2. A magazine or book containing lurid subject matter and being characteristically printed on rough, unfinished paper. Title Card: American Heritag...
Jody: Lance! The goddamn phone's ringing! Lance: [getting up to answer the phone] I can hear it. Jody: I thought you told those fucking assholes never to call here this late! Lance: Yeah, I told them. And that is exactly what I'm going to tell this f...
Kay Eiffel: [sees Harold for the first time] Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Harold Crick: Miss Eiffel? Kay Eiffel: Your hair. Your eyes. Your fingers. Your shoes. Harold Crick: Hello. I'm Harold Crick. Kay Eiffel: I know.
For most of human history, 'literature,' both fiction and poetry, has been narrated, not written — heard, not read. So fairy tales, folk tales, stories from the oral tradition, are all of them the most vital connection we have with the imaginations...
Mr. Codro's destiny is Ptolemaic; in other words, based on fiction. Ptolemaic says it all; it means above all fixed and unchanging, that is to say different from real life which is by nature changing and temporary. It means: not according to natural ...
The endless piles of genre fiction are the key to happiness. They’re the key to picking out the things that actually make you happy in this world instead of the things that you’re told are good for you. Ninety percent of everything you read is go...
I am careful about fiction. A novel is not a tract or an essay. If I want to write about land reforms, or Hindu-Muslim relations, or position of women, I can do it as it affects my characters as in 'A Suitable Boy.' I could only write about issues sp...
Something changed in part of reality — my knees and my hands. What science has knowledge for this? The blind man goes on his way and I don’t make any more gestures. It’s already not the same time, or the same people, or anything the same. This ...
After the thing went off, after it was a sure thing that America could wipe out a city with just one bomb, a scientist turned to Father and said, 'Science has now known sin.' And do you know what Father said? He said, 'What is sin?
We all have a thirst for wonder. It's a deeply human quality. Science and religion are both bound up with it. What I'm saying is, you don't have to make stories up, you don't have to exaggerate. There's wonder and awe enough in the real world. Nature...
One simple but powerful consequence of the fractal geometry of surfaces is that surfaces in contact do not touch everywhere. The bumpiness at all scales prevents that. Even in rock under enormous pressure, at some sufficiently small scale it becomes ...
Men-kind shared this world for but a blink, then, sadly, they became enlightened, found science and religion. The new world of men left little room for magic or the magical creatures of old. Earth’s first children were driven into the shadows by fl...
You know what? Fuck it. Just fuck it. The Rising didn't manage to wipe out the human race, it just made us turn into even bigger assholes than we were before. Hear that, mad science? You failed. You were supposed to kill us all, and instead you turne...
