Best 4069 quotes in «fiction quotes» category

Why can’t I take you? Why is it so hard? You have the other half of my soul; with you I will be complete! So. Then. Why?” Crispin murmured clenching his fists. Oh, he pitied the fool who would be in his way once he returned to his domain. “Oh, what suffering will befall them in her place,” he smiled wickedly. ~Crispin~

Why are we so hard on ourselves?" asked someone with great plaintiveness. Faith thought, it's not that I'm so hard on myself exactly, it's that I've learned to adopt the views of men as if they were my own.

Why did you leave? Am I not good enough? Where did you go? When did it happen? ..Who are you?

Why does the theory of evolution provoke such objections, whereas nobody seems to care about the theory of relativity or quantum mechanics? How come politicians don’t ask that kids be exposed to alternative theories about matter, energy, space and time? After all, Darwin’s ideas seem at first sight far less threatening than the monstrosities of Einstein and Werner Heisenberg. The theory of evolution rests on the principle of the survival of the fittest, which is a clear and simple – not to say humdrum – idea. In contrast, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics argue that you can twist time and space, that something can appear out of nothing, and that a cat can be both alive and dead at the same time. This makes a mockery of our common sense, yet nobody seeks to protect innocent schoolchildren from these scandalous ideas. Why? The theory of relativity makes nobody angry, because it doesn’t contradict any of our cherished beliefs. Most people don’t care an iota whether space and time are absolute or relative. If you think it is possible to bend space and time, well, be my guest. Go ahead and bend them. What do I care? In contrast, Darwin has deprived us of our souls. If you really understand the theory of evolution, you understand that there is no soul. This is a terrifying thought not only to devout Christians and Muslims, but also to many secular people who don’t hold any clear religious dogma, but nevertheless want to believe that each human possesses an eternal individual essence that remains unchanged throughout life, and can survive even death intact.

Why do I feel like this is our destiny. There must be a reason why we have become our characters.

Why do you think movies and fiction authors invent vampires, lottery winners, and soulmates? I'll tell you why: because watching someone brush their teeth, shop for sandwich meat, and change the toilet paper roll is as mind-numbing for the observer as it is for the observed. Problem is, we live the toilet paper life, not the vampire life.' ....'But we expect the vampires.

Why do we weep once we know that everything will be alright? We weep because the only way everything could ever be alright is in fiction. We weep because what we've seen can't be true, no matter how badly we wish it were. We weep at the truth.

Why hadn't he chosen a different Amish barn to bed down in last nacht? He hated Bethany seeing him like this. Remembering him like this. A homeless wanderer. A stray.

Why do you devour everything?” I said. “Look at you—Haven’t you had your fill of life yet?” He looked at me, for all the world like an elder brother. “It is my intention,” he said, “to leave nothing left left over. No false reverence. I love my knees too much to dirty them by kneeling before anyone or anything.” “Why, you pompous fool.” “Perhaps,” he said. “You see, we don’t kneel down before that which is worthy—to think that is to make a mistake in psychology. We kneel to make ourselves worthy. We kneel as a means of generating the true spirit of submission. Not the other way around. So it is that the weak kneel, for it empowers them. It is the slave’s religion. If Narcissus kneels, Narcissus is worthy. That is the Western deal. So he kneels wherever he can. And you, you are the greatest kneeler I have ever met. You would even kneel to me. You are a born slave—yes, born to it—for you have not even the primitive republican’s desire to question your captivity. You see yourself in the heroes of books and you feel emancipated from the tyranny of living only one life. But heroes in novels are slaves, too—which is why you identify with them; they are trapped in their fictional worlds and you are trapped in the real one. If someone gave you the key to liberate yourself from your prison you wouldn’t know what to do with it.” "What is the key?” I said, in spite of myself. He paused, and gently pushed his empty glass towards me. “Brilliance.” At that moment I despised him.

Why have you given your life to books, TC? Dull, dull, dull! The memoirs are bad enough, but all that ruddy fiction! Hero goes on a journey, stranger comes to town, somebody wants something, they get it or they don't, will is pitted against will. "Admire me, for I am a metaphor.

Why not?

Why should I struggle through hundreds of pages of fabrication to reach half a dozen very little truths?' 'For fun?' 'Fun!' He pounced on the word. 'Words are for truth. For facts. Not fiction.

Wife's name is woman.

Wie willst du leugnen, liebe Freundin, dass es Wesen gibt - keine Menschen, keine Tiere - seltsame Wesen, die aus der verruchten Lust absurder Gedanken entsprangen?

Why write a song when no one can play the notes or understand the lyrics?

Wish it, Plan it, Do it.

Wisdom tolerates blustered opinions, the better to dismiss them later with discovery.

With a little bit of spirit in her system to help her weave the lies and facts together, Emily told the partial truth.

With Catty and Patrick's images in he side mirror waving from the steps of that house like Jethro and Ellie Mae, it occurred to me that something extraordinary had happened. I had effortlessly found a place of acceptance -- a place where people had taken me for me, not for what I could give them -- and I had left it.

With every fall of the sun and rise of the moon, I can hear it. The Prophecy. It echoes through the halls of time. It is written on the surface of every star. Even the sun and moon cannot withhold the news of the second coming. I hear it. And I fear it.

... Within the mind, especially the mind under great stress... boundaries of space and time are meaningless, and the... interior self lives by other rules and in other dimensions.

With one perfect kiss on one perfect English summer afternoon, we understand the meaning of all the colors of every rainbow, forevermore.

Without love, we would not comprehend compassion. - Govinda Shauri

With out freedom nothing has value, Free agency is the only true key to happiness.

Without thinking, I step a little closer, reaching out slowly to slide a fingertip over the largest petal of the lily tattoo on her lower back. Instantly a vibration moves up my arm, and I swear the mark on my hand burns against my skin. I clench my fingers into a fist, but I don’t step away. “Did you feel that?” she asks. I shake my head. “I don’t know.” I feel so much, always so much. She takes my hand and brings it to her side again, resting it on the violets. I look at the purple flowers between my fingers and feel the heat of her skin, the way it slides beneath my palm, soft as silk. And that vibration moves through my arm again. Her breath quickens. I find myself moving closer as her blue eyes go wide with wonder. My heart stutters and my chest aches with some unknown need. “Are you doing this?” I ask. Is she making me want this? “No,” she breathes. The smell of her turns to spice, sharp and warm, and I know I’m sensing her now, even through the block in the house. We stand like that for an eternity, still as statues on the outside, but inside I’m running, running toward a place I’ve never been. I should be terrified. But all I feel is strength. Rightness. And then Kara moves, her hands skimming up my chest, testing the boundaries. Her palms slide to my shoulders, her fingers tracing the line of the muscles in my arms, down to my waist. She grips my shirt, stretching it a little, waiting for me to tell her to stop. But I watch her lift it, let her pull it up, raising my arms, and I even take the last of it off myself, dropping it to the floor. We breathe, staring at each other. The vibrations move between us. My left arm buzzes with them. I think she’s doing it. Whatever’s happening, it’s her. I reach up and brush my marked knuckles across her cheek, amazed at the feel of her, the way her eyes seem to see everything, the way she pulls me into her. I can’t seem to remember why I shouldn’t kiss her. And kiss her. And . . . I kiss her, taking her face in both hands, skimming my thumb over her jaw as she leans into the touch, reaching out to curl her fingers around the back of my neck. I have to remind myself to breathe. I need more of her. The emotions roll over me in a rush, a tangle of sensation and movement, heat and sugar and heady aromas. I grip her tighter. Her nails dig into my shoulders. My hands slide down her spine. The kiss deepens, goes on forever, until I can barely see sense. I explore her shape, the feel of her ribs, the textures and taste of her skin on my tongue as I kiss her neck, her shoulders, her chest. As I draw trembling gasps from her lips, she grips me so hard it hurts. Our bodies mesh. Our breath mingles in frenzied desperation. Nothing else exists except her. Her warmth. Her spice. Her.

With patience and perseverance my day will come!

With spring came heavy rain. It was in the muck and mud of six days of downpour while milking Li’l Belle that I heard him approach. I waited and listened to the rain hitting the tin roof of the lean-to and the sound of his boots. With each step his boots made an air-sucking sound as he pulled them free of the mud. I counted the sound of his footsteps one by one ’til I knew he was a few yards away. Only then did I rise from the milking stool and turn to him. He stood there outside smiling and pulled one boot free of the mud, his arms outstretched, balancing himself like a tightrope walker. “Hey, Larraine. Look what you made me do. Made me ruin my best shirt and good pair of boots trying to sneak up on you. I just want to ask you some questions. You know what I’m talking about, girl? That little queer, Johnny Redboots?” He took off his shirt, held it up, attempted to wring the rainwater from it then laughed and threw it in the mud near the lean-to. I stood quiet with one hand on the rope strap of the shotgun and the other hand resting on Li’l Belle’s back. Li’l Belle moved from side to side, restless and wanting free of the lean-to.

With the threat of them being potential spies or saboteurs, nobody will argue against our actions, and history itself will vindicate us.

Women create an idealized, hopeful vision for the future to inspire other women. Fiction and fantasy are the crucial first steps to changing the world.

Wo es hinkam, wuchs aus der Nacht ein kleinstes Geräusch. Knirschte hell eine Diele, löste sich ein Nagel, bog sich ein altes Möbel. Knarrte es in den verquollenen Läden oder klirrte seltsam zwischen den Gläsern – Alles schlief in dem grossen Hause am Rhein. Aber irgend etwas schlurfte langsam herum –

Woe is the mind of the common man, so easily controlled by the prospect of an ambition never to be truly attained. This is what tyrants live on and by what commoners are blissfully burdened and subdued.

Wolfman clears everything off the table except his gun. That he keeps close at hand. There is a sense of ceremony about his actions. My stomach tightens up. We are about to begin.

Would it be possible, he wondered, to stand up before the world and with the utmost conviction spew out lies and nonsense? To say that windmills were knights, that a barber’s basin was a helmet, that puppets were real people? Would it be possible to persuade others to agree with what he said, even though they did not believe him? In other words, to what extent would people tolerate blasphemies if they gave them amusement? The answer is obvious, isn’t it? To any extent. For the proof is that we still read the book. It remains highly amusing to us. And that’s finally all anyone wants out of a book—to be amused.

Words, to me, are the same as an instrument is to a musician. I never know where this typewriter is going to take me until I begin. I never know what I'm feeling until I read over what I have written.

Would you like to come in?" I said. My hands were sweaty. Inside my chest an ocean heaved and crashed and heaved again. "I would," he said. I saw his Adam's apple jerk as he swallowed. "Thank you." I was distracted by that thank you. We had moved past the language of formality long ago. It was strange to relearn it with each other.

Writing a novel is like reading a book, you have to keep at it if you want to find out what happens next.

Writing fiction feels like an adventurous act, nudging aside reality a word at a time.

Writing fiction is fun. Writing non-fiction is life-changing.

Writing historical fiction has many common traits with writing sci-fi or fantasy books. The past is another country - a very different world - and historical readers want to see, smell and touch what it was like living there.

Writing a book with completely fictitious characters is like running a democracy, centered around a capital state. You constantly live with the fear & suspicion that one of the characters will start an uncontrollable rebellion.

Writing is a form of running away. Running away to a place you made with your own hand.

Writing is like the beating of a heart; it can be faint as a lazy Sunday afternoon just chillin', or throb with a crackling imagination as wide and varied as the Seven Wonders of The World. Words are the blood that pulses through our souls.

Writing is the one thing I know I will never grow tired of in life; the one thing I could do until the day I die and still feel like I haven’t done enough.

Writing keeps me sane.

Xavier was like some sort of sex drug that numbed my mind and clouded it. He made me stupid.

Workshop Hermeticism, fiction for which the highest praise involves the words 'competent,' 'finished,' 'problem-free,' fiction over which Writing-Program pre- and proscriptions loom with the enclosing force of horizons: no character without Freudian trauma in accessible past, without near-diagnostic physical description; no image undissolved into regulation Updikean metaphor; no overture without a dramatized scene to 'show' what's 'told'; no denouement prior to an epiphany whose approach can be charted by and Freitag on any Macintosh.

Write fiction about your life and pay with your life, at least three times. Here is the ax.

Writing fiction is a way of expressing feelings and revealing a certain truth about life, goals, dreams and desires.

Writing is a bittersweet addiction. The more it drains you; the more replenished you feel, and you crave it even more.

Writing is a form of running away. Running away to a place you made by your own hand.