Quotes & Sayings About Historical Fiction Books

When I lived in China, there were no libraries. My mother bought books for me, and they were mostly the classics. I read 'Peter Pan,' 'The Secret Garden,' the 'Rosemary' books, and Kipling's 'Just So' Stories was one of my favorites. No, I didn't read historical fiction. It didn't exist where I was growing up in China. — Jean Fritz

Why do I write historical fiction? Johnny Tremain, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Island of the Blue Dolphins-that's why. I'll never forget how it felt to read those books. I want to write books with the same power to transport readers into another time and place. — Jennifer Armstrong

I want to... have fun with writing again. Enjoy my work, enjoy playing with the language and characters like a sculptor plays with clay. But there's this manic focus on numbers--how many books have you written and how many have you sold and it's all push, push, push, and no time for reflection--but at heart, books are about dreaming... which is just the opposite. So I don't know...
M.M. Bennetts comment to Nancy Bilyeau as related in Nancy's tribute "M.M. Bennetts: The Closest Friend I Never Met — M.M. Bennetts

Want to read my most favorites books? They are Wildflowers, Bridie's Daughter, and Secrets! You'll be glad you did! — Robert Noonan

Oddly enough, my favorite genre is not fiction. I'm attracted by primary sources that are relevant to historical questions of interest to me, by famous old books on philosophy or theology that I want to see with my own eyes, by essays on contemporary science, by the literatures of antiquity. — Marilynne Robinson

I've been told that I cannot change shit, so I might as well stop torturing myself. My emotions are ridiculed and branded as childish. I have been told that the world has given up on my people. I have been told, and realise that on many occasions, I myself am viewed as an outcast by some of those suffering. I've been confronted and my answer is always the same: I care even in my most fucked-up moments. I care even when gates of shit pour open to drown me; I care because I am a citizen of the world. — Asaad Almohammad

I believe we do well to fall asleep each night with books. We enter the library of our dreams in good company then. — Robert Stephen Parry

See, I know how they do. White folks like to stay in those books. They carry and they keep and they dig in their books, like nothing matters that don't get written in some book somewhere. Like that's the only way they can know for sure what happened. They'll write down who they are and what they did. And their daddies and theirs too. Put it all in a book, then close it up and put it on the shelf. Just to know it's there so they can sleep at night. Like if they don't get written down somewhere and they shut their eyes for a minute, they might disappear. — Margaret Wrinkle

Writing is the Art, re-writing the craft. — O'Brien Browne

A book is a wonderful present. Though it may grow worn, it will never grow old. — Jane Yolen

Rooks have clustered on either side of the long road. It is as if they line a grand parade route for our passage. Their black feathers are stark as soot against the white road and the snow. They stab at the ground with their strange bare bills and gray unfeathered faces. The birds are like rough-edged black stones on a string around this stripped cold neck of road. The old books tell us rooks bring the virtuous dead to heaven's gate. — Ned Hayes

---Sleeps through the washes of the morning's colors and the warm brilliance of sunrise. She sleeps in a world where she remembers, perfectly, every detail about her husband, this day, that sentence, another touch. She will remember it all in the deepest sleep, and lose it again the moment her eyes open and she wonders how late it must be for the sun to already be so high and then remembers, in the next instant, what happened the day before. — Ashley Hay

All of my books are acts of subversion disguised as historical fiction. — Kelly Gardiner

As a citizen of the world, it's my instinct to keep the fallen and the suffering in my thoughts. The human brain fascinates me; its limitless bounds of empathy. You see, in my mind there is logic to it: do no harm, prevent harm, help, support, care for the harmed, face the harmer. My stupid idealist conscience considers sympathy, not pity, at its worst, the most basic and the least negotiable civil duty. Of course as a citizen of the world, I should strive to do more. That said, I am only a man and so I often do the least. — Asaad Almohammad

I had a few people ask me if I might one day write my own autobiography. I just told them, 'It's already being written; through my books. — T.S. Wieland

Not strictly one of mine, but worth repeating! A very forceful old lady in these parts, when referring to the eight novels of the Angel Mountain Saga,was heard to say: "You know them books by that fellow Brian John? If I was you I wouldn't believe a single word. Take it from me. It's lies -- all lies! — Brian John

Books are an extension of our imagination — Danny Saunders

For I'm neither a submitter nor a hating retaliator, I acknowledge the boundaries of my existence; yet, I still care. I care regardless of the way they choose to reduce me to the brand that is the birthmark of the accident of my conception. I care less about what that brand signifies in terms of my character, potential, and intentions. For the harmed I care. For the real victims. It's the most basic of my mandatory civil duties. Only in caring, am I a citizen of the world. — Asaad Almohammad

For some reason, notwithstanding the alienation and utter rejection, I consider myself a global citizen. They say misery calls for company and I've always been a man of funerals. The companion of the misfortunate, until they are not! — Asaad Almohammad

My ears become my conduit to the world. In the darkness I listen - to thrillers, to detective novels, to romances; to family sagas, potboilers and historical novels; to ghost stories and classic fiction and chick lit; to bonkbusters and history books. I listen to good books and bad books, great books and terrible books; I do not discriminate. Steadily, hour after hour, in the darkness I consume them all. — Anna Lyndsey

Historical novels are, without question, the best way of teaching history, for they offer the human stories behind the events and leave the reader with a desire to know more. — Louis L'Amour

My books fall in the wobbly middle between historical fiction and historical romance. — Lauren Willig

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. — Sara Sheridan

Positive thoughts (expectations) can change perspective, transform behaviors, and attract good fortune. — Donna M. McDine