Fictional Universe Quotes & Sayings

I mentioned early in this book the kind of rereading distinctive of a fan
the Tolkien addict, say, or the devotee of Jane Austen or Trollope or the Harry Potter books. The return to such books is often motivated by a desire to dwell for a time in a self-contained fictional universe, with its own boundaries and its own rules. (It is a moot question whether Austen and Trollope's first readers were drawn to their novels for these reasons, but their readers today often are.) Such rereading is not purely a matter of escapism, even though that is one reason for its attraction: we should note that it's not what readers are escaping from but that they are escaping into that counts most. Most of us do not find fictional worlds appealing because we find our own lives despicable, though censorious people often make that assumption. Auden once wrote that "there must always be ... escape-art, for man needs escape as he needs food and deep sleep." The sleeper does not disdain consciousness. — Alan Jacobs

Loving one another is half of wisdom. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

Science works as a way to make sense of life and the universe. Hard SF as my preferred fictional genre just feels natural. — Edward M. Lerner

Tethered to the universe by tendrils of history, with threads of continuity descending to God knows where, I see that I'm more than the dust I'll become."
This quote is from my novel, "Whispers from St. Mary's Well." Many readers have said that, like the fictional narrator of the story, Carrie Rose Stillwell, they felt a deep connection to the universe through past, present, and future experiences, after reading the story of a child who communicates with future generations. — Carol Kenny

Clearly, in an infinite universe every possibility must exist, including Balzac's. Imagining Cousin Bette called her into beaing, although only potentially. The universe is merely a quantity of information; imagining a fictional character does not add to that quantity
it cannot do so by definition
but does reorganize it slightly. The Bette-ish universe has not material existence, but the initial idea in Balzac's brandy-soaked brain then spreads outwards: not only to those who read his books, but also, by implication, backwards and forwards. Imagining Cousin Bette also creates, in potential, her ancestors and descendants, friends, enemies, acquaintances, her thoughts and actions and those of everybody else in her universe. — Iain Pears

The holy universal Church teaches that it is not possible to worship God truly except in Her and asserts that all who are outside of Her will not be saved. — Pope Gregory I

For a while Bastian stood motionless. He was so stunned by what he had just heard that he couldn't decide what to do ... What he had hoped was his ruin and what he had feared his salvation. — Michael Ende

Star Wars was a total piece of shit that had spawned billions of dollars in merchandise and sequels and books and games and pajama bottoms. It was an infinite reservoir, it was an endless void. It was responsible for a cornucopia of made up words like Jedi, the Force and lightsaber.

A lightsaber was a sword made of light. A sword was a weapon used to murder people.

A Jedi was a knight who believed in an idea of relative good and performed supernatural feats using the Force. A Jedi used supernatural feats and his lightsaber to murder people with opposing ideas of relative good.

The Force was an ill-explained mystical energy which ran throughout the fictional universe of Star Wars. It was a device which allowed characters to perform supernatural feats whenever a lull was created by poor writing in the screenplay.

As might be imagined, the Force was used with great frequency. — Jarett Kobek

As in the universe every atom has an effect, however miniscule, on every other atom, so that to pinch the fabric of Time and Space at any point is to shake the whole length and breadth of it, so that to change a character's name from Jane to Cynthia is to make the fictional ground shudder under her feet. — John Gardner

[W]hen I put Jorge in the library I did not yet know he was the murderer. He acted on his own, so to speak. And it must not be thought that this is an 'idealistic' position, as if I were saying that the characters have an autonomous life and the author, in a kind of trance, makes them behave as they themselves direct him. That kind of nonsense belongs in term papers. The fact is that the characters are obliged to act according to the laws of the world in which they live. In other words, the narrator is the prisoner of his own premises. — Umberto Eco

Do not find yourself in the music, but find the music in yourself — Heinrich Neuhaus

The attainment of knowledge is the high and exclusive attribute of man, among the numberless myriads of animated beings, inhabitants of the terrestrial globe. On him alone is bestowed, by the bounty of the Creator of the universe, the power and the capacity of acquiring knowledge. Knowledge is the attribute of his nature which at once enables him to improve his condition upon earth, and to prepare him for the enjoyment of a happier existence hereafter. — John Quincy Adams

The first thing I became interested in in terms of 'Brain Storm' was neuroscience, and that is like saying you're interested in the universe. So ultimately I knew if I was going to handle this in a fictional format, I would have to take a subsection of neuroscience, and that turned out to be the use of neuroscience in criminal courts. — Richard Dooling