Non Fiction Quotes & Sayings

I spend most of my time reading non-fiction of all sorts. Then poetry. Then fiction to blurb. Then fiction I want to read. — Jim Shepard

Loose lips sink ships. — Erwin Rommel

Well now," the dragon says to her in a voice like rolling thunder, "who are you really here to save? — Patti Larsen

I teach a non-fiction writing class at New York University, and one of my great pleasures is deciding on the syllabus. — Susan Orlean

I do teach fiction and non-fiction, and usually I'm interested in works that confuse genre, but I'm very new to teaching creative writing, I don't have an MFA, or a PhD, I tend to approach it just through my own practice. — Kate Zambreno

He looks at houses, chateaus, forests, and thinks about the countless generations who used to see those things and who are gone now; and he understands that everything he is seeing is oblivion; pure oblivion, the oblivion whose absolute state will soon be achieved, the moment he himself is gone. And again I think about the obvious idea (that astoundingly obvious idea) that everything that exists (nation, thought, music) can also not exist. — Milan Kundera

Reading a non-fiction book is like a religious experience. — Rachel Perry

Fiction is entertaining. Nonfiction is epic. — A.D. Posey

The extremists had declared jihad against anyone and anything that challenged their vision of a pure Islamic society, and these artifacts - treatises about logic, astrology, and medicine, paeans to music, poems idealizing romantic love - represented five hundred years of human joy. They celebrated the sensual and the secular, and they bore the explicit message that humanity, as well as God, was capable of creating beauty. They were monumentally subversive. — Joshua Hammer

Wells is teaching us to think. Burroughs and his lesser imitators are teaching us not to think. Of course, Burroughs is teaching us to wonder. The sense of wonder is in essence a religious state, blanketing out criticism. Wells was always a critic, even in his most wondrous and romantic tales.

And there, I believe, the two poles of modern fantasy stand defined. At one pole wait Wells and his honorable predecessors such as Swift; at the other, Burroughs and the commercial producers, such as Otis Adelbart Kline, and the weirdies, and horror merchants such as H.P. Lovecraft, and so all the way past Tolkien to today's non-stop fantasy worlders. Mary Shelley stands somewhere at the equator of this metaphor. — Brian W. Aldiss

If I wasn't sure before, I'm sure now that she poisoned him to death. I'm also fairly sure she had help killing him, and by God, I'm going to prove it, if it's the last thing I ever do. — Jeannie Walker

What I like about non-fiction is that it covers such a huge territory. The best non-fiction is also creative. — Tracy Kidder

In real life I always seem to have a hard time winding up a conversation or asking somebody to leave, and sometimes the moment becomes so delicate and fraught with social complexity that I'll get overwhelmed trying to sort out all the different possible ways of saying it and all the different implications of each option and will just sort of blank out and do it totally straight
'I want to terminate the conversation and not have you be in my apartment anymore'
which evidently makes me look either as if I'm very rude and abrupt or as if I'm semi-autistic and have no sense of how to wind up a conversation gracefully ... I've actually lost friends this way. — David Foster Wallace

History - the non-fiction version - must inform the fiction to make it truthful; too much of it and your genres are colliding. — Jon Weisman

Don't look up to people, don't be someone's following.
Now a days everything you see is just a lie,
Instead be the person you want to follow. — Akash Lakhotia

There is, in my mind, no higher compliment to pay a non-fiction book than to say it reads like a novel. — Jon Weisman

I love the opportunity to just let my imagination run riot! Non-fiction can be very restrictive. — Raymond Buckland

Had a big trial. It was like an Errol Flynn movie. — Jeannie Walker

A 21st century poet is a woman who can speak her mind and stand upright like a mountain with her convictions, but can adapt like water in an ever changing season without losing her genuine elements. — Roseville Nidea

Energy is the language spoken by your body. You probably already know that your brain sends bioelectric signals to your organs and muscles through the nerve pathways in your body. But did you ever consider how your brain talks to your cells? — Ilchi Lee

When you make choices, please remember: what is good for you but not good for others won't be good for you either, eventually; what's good for you and others but not good for the Earth won't be good for you or others either, eventually; what's good for you, others, and the Earth will be good for all. — Ilchi Lee

Writing is not about the end product, yes that is extremely important. It's not even about the grammar or style you write in; style and grammar are in the eye of the beholder. With each person, someone will find problems so grammar and style are moot. Writing, truly diving in is about the creative process...discovering a newer side of yourself as you are writing; creating. The adventure from page one to being done is what it is about. Do you feel good with the end product? do you feel good half way through? The point to this is simple...feedback is vital to selling your work, paying attention to hurtful feedback can destroy your pursuit of your dreams. so write for you...sell to others but write from your soul. Whether it's fiction/faction/non fiction or somewhere in between if your heart and soul is not in it...you are not going to be happy with it. — Kyle Williamson

What appear to be depravity, injury, or extinction are merely traces of memory and experience obscuring the soul. These are merely shadows of the soul, never its substance. The soul itself is always pure and whole. — Ilchi Lee

Hope is putting Faith "on the line" and expecting results!
(from Mission Possible - Spiritual Covering) — Deborah L. McCarragher

Only God writes great non-fiction. — E.C. Lartigue

I calculated how easy it would be to pull a chair next to the windowsill, climb up, and simply allow my body to fall four stories to the street. Then an inner voice broke in, There's got to be something more. Go find it. — Debra Moffitt

Living a spiritual life may not be easy. It demands total authenticity. It brings you to dance to a unique song that only you can hear fully, and sometimes you dance alone because no others can hear the music. — Debra Moffitt

I didn't like the computer when I first began using it. Where it's helped me a lot is in non-fiction which is a kind of different process. You've got research, you've got your notes. You can block out what you want to work on for the next 10 pages and put it in another file, and then you can kind of carve it into shape. — Joan Didion

I tend to listen to music more than I read. I need to get into reading a bit more. The stuff I tend to read is usually non-fiction books more than fiction, but I've been trying to power my way through Dostoevsky's 'Crime and Punishment,' and I do enjoy it. — Isaac Hempstead-Wright

I'm a reluctant writer of non-fiction, in part because I don't really feel qualified. — William Gibson

Not responding is a response - we are equally responsible for what we don't do. — Jonathan Safran Foer

The writing talent of Edinburgh is textured - we have poets, novelists, non-fiction writers, dramatists and more. — Sara Sheridan

Long dismissed as children's stories or 'myths' by Westerners, Australian Aboriginal stories have only recently begun to be taken seriously for what they are: the longest continuous record of historic events and spirituality in the world. — Karl-Erik Sveiby

Expand the definition of 'reading' to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It's the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won't read shark books forever. — Jon Scieszka

The best way to tell people about climate change is through non-fiction. There's a vast literature of outstanding writing on the subject. — Ian McEwan

Without books we're a very uneducated society. Think of the places books have taken us, the people we've been introduced to (fiction or non-fiction) and how books have allowed us to broaden our vocabulary. — Tom Robinson

I did one sci-fi movie. I did 'Gattaca.' I liked 'Gattaca' because that was always the kind of science fiction I really dug, the non-action oriented sci-fi. — Ethan Hawke

It was an interesting night. I'd never been to a non-Jewish wedding, and Phelan assured me that this one was not the norm. The bride and groom got pissed as newts - he ended up passed out, sprawled face down in his own vomit, while she did the cancan on the bridal table, flashing something old, which apparently was nothing new. — Paula Houseman

You gotta help me get out of here! Cut me loose! Cut me loose!
Well, Jerry, I gotta go to work, but I'll come back this afternoon and if you're not better, then we'll see about ... I'll see what I can do.
It'll be too late, Gamble. I'll be dead by then. Cut me loose! You gotta help me. You just gotta help me! — Jeannie Walker

In order to survive, I came up with a five-step secret to getting it all done. If you're busy too, feel free to use it:
1. Admit that you can't possibly get it all done. — Jon Acuff

The enlightened worry more about the problems of the world than about their own problems, and their longing for the well-being of all life grows deeper,
making the suffering of all people, all creatures, and all things their own. This is a gift brought by enlightenment, which, at the same time, brings deep anguish. — Ilchi Lee

Imagine going to work every day to do only and exactly what you love!! All the work gets done because of the abundant diversity of your team. Different skills, interests and talents are woven together into a whole that is much greater than the sum of the parts! — Denise Moreland

Chinese readers are buying books in translation, particularly non-fiction about China, in large numbers. — Evan Osnos

I lay off a lot modern fiction and only rely on living writers for non-fiction work. — Henry Rollins

To be a mass tourist, for me, ... is, in lines and gridlock and transaction after transaction, to confront a dimension of yourself that is as inescapable as it is painful: As a tourist, you become economically significant but existentially loathsome, an insect on a dead thing. — David Foster Wallace

I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing. It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers pay to the formal aspects of their work. — Alain De Botton

Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define the "moral behavior" as "behavior that tends toward survival". — Robert A. Heinlein

Historical facts are the vital framework around which non-fiction writers construct their narratives; they are, quite simply, indispensable. — Saul David

I'm always looking for context in which people tell stories. In "Fight Club" it's these support groups for dying people, and then in "Choke" it's 12-step recovery groups. In one novel it's artists' colonies, in another novel it's a diary form that submariners' wives typically keep so that when their husband comes back from serving on a submarine they have an accounting of their spouse's time. So I'm always looking for, number one, a non-fiction context - because you can tell a more outrageous story if you use a non-fiction form. — Chuck Palahniuk

If Mistery, Crime, Horror, True Crime, SuperNature, Fiction, Non-FIcition and many other categoris if they didn't exist, and people didn't find a way to relax. Nobody will be never on the way to reach the place where almost a lot of are now, people don't want normal life they want to view the life through a killer. — Deyth Banger

The nature of life is mess, chaotic, exquisitely beautiful, excruciatingly painful, immensely joy-filled, and unpredictable. — Debra Moffitt

My romantic history since arriving on Novo has been non-existent, but I don't know what, if anything, came before; thanks to the government's cerebral pilfering. — Siobhan Davis

I have to say that writing about my writing process is more daunting than writing non-fiction. — Sefi Atta

I'm a novelist, I'm not an activist. I'm not a non-fiction writer, I'm not a journalist. I'm not a foodie, I'm not even really an animal person, or an environmentalist. I did the best I could with this, but it's not who I am. — Jonathan Safran Foer

Many people have observed that truth is stranger than fiction. This has led some intellectuals to conclude that it's stranger than non-fiction as well. — Brad Holland

I've always felt that no one understands why some books of non-fiction endure and some don't, because there's not much understanding among many non-fiction writers that the narrative is terribly important. — Robert Caro

No more looking at a wall and pretending it's a mirror. No more shelving fiction in the non-fiction section. No more thinking I could get away with it. — David Levithan

I used to hammer away at the idea of simplicity.
In both fiction and non-fiction, there's only one question and one answer. 'What happened?' the reader asks. 'This is what happened,' the writer responds. 'This ... and this ... and this, too.' Keep it simple. It's the only sure way home. — Stephen King

Time in the most powerful thing.
Not money, not power, not hope.
A person can have everything they
desire but without time they are,
all useless. — Akash Lakhotia

Night's darkness cloaked Elske, covering her as the winter snows cover mountains, from peak to foot. Elske moved with the weight of darkness on her shoulders, on her head; and she tasted it in her mouth like the flavorless rills that ran so fast in spring melts. — Cynthia Voigt

I'm never going to give in. I'm never going to give up, and I will fight back with every breath I have.
- Dionne Warner, seven-time cancer survivor and subject of Never Leave Your Wingman — Deana J. Driver

Once you realize that the imagination is non-fiction, the world is yours — Carl Henegan

Psychologically speaking (I'll only wheel out the amateur psychology just this once, so bear with me), encounters that call up strong physical disgust or revulsion are often in fact projections of our own faults and weaknesses. — Haruki Murakami

... by treating nature as exterior and inferior to humans we saw no harm to ourselves in polluting the soil, the plants, the air and the water. We did not notice the effect of our pollution on whatever walked over it, ran across it, climbed up it, flew through it, or swam in it.

Now we notice that harming other constituents of our planetary system brings harm to ourselves. — Betty Jean Craige

Writing for children can be completely honest in non-cynical ways. In adult books you're required to be cynical. It embarrasses us to say positive things. You can have affection and hope in children's books, but that is out of fashion in adult fiction. — Lloyd Alexander

I have long admired the visceral storytelling and moral complexity of John Vaillant's brilliant non-fiction about humankind's tragically ambivalent relationship with the natural world. Now he brings his abundant literary gifts to a debut novel set in a very real borderland in which human beings are themselves treated like animals. The Jaguar's Children is a beautifully rendered lament for an imperiled culture and the brave lives that would preserve it. You should read it. — John Burnham Schwartz

For my purpose, the non-fiction form of abstract knowledge doesn't interest me; the final, applied form of fiction, of story, does. — Ayn Rand

The primary goal of publishing general fiction and non-fiction was never profit - though profit was essential to stay in the game. Publishing is a vocation in which the work is its own reward, an insufficient goal for today's conglomerates. — Jason Epstein

I've seen it all in Nevada, Kansas before that, and the War of Northern Aggression before that. People do all sorts of nasty things. And while I used to believe that there was something profoundly wrong about the human condition - sin passed on from the first man and that only the grace of God in Jesus Christ could make everything right, the standard explanation in churches Mormon to Methodist - it didn't take me long to learn that Christians and non-Christians, women and men, young and old were all capable of doing the worse things a human being might imagine, and then some.

From my upcoming novel, BATHHOUSE ROW, (available this fall). — Gregg Edwards Townsley

...erosion control in Japan is like a game of chess. The forest
engineer, after studying his eroding valley, makes his first move, locating and building
one or more check dams. He waits to see what Nature's response is. This determines the
forest engineer's next move, which may be another dam or two, an increase in the former
dam, or the construction of side retaining walls. After another pause for observation, the
next move is made and so on until erosion is checkmated." (An Agricultural Testament) — Albert Howard

Combat isn't where you might die
though that does happen
it's where you find out whether you get to keep on living. Don't underestimate the power of that revelation. Don't underestimate the things young men will wager in order to play that game one more time. — Sebastian Junger

It's very hard to be a screenwriter. I remember getting a couple of awards. I got a PEN West award a million years ago when I did Running on Empty, and I sat in the room with all these writers. They wrote everything from novels to non-fiction to children's books to journalism - any kind of writing - and I realized that there was no one in the room who would ever read anything I'd written. — Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal

If you read a book that's fiction and you get caught in the characters and the plot, and swept away, really, by the fiction of it - by the non-reality - you sometimes wind up changing your reality as well. Often, when the last page is turned, it will haunt you. — Jodi Picoult

Amy Rapp, my producing partner, and I are drawn to character-driven material. We're developing and producing movies and TV, fiction and non-fiction, studio and independent, broadcast and cable, theatre, and web so our slate is really diverse. — Meredith Vieira

Fiction described reality better than non-fiction. — Tommy Wallach

I've done a lot of movies based on real people, real situations, non-fiction books, magazine articles, life rights. — Scott Rudin

I never look at a painting and ask, "Is this painting fictional or non-fictional?" It's just a painting. — Scott McClanahan

Science Non Fiction/ Fantasy = Future — Deyth Banger

By a monstrous act of reductionism, the infinite depth of who you are is confused with a sound produced by the vocal cords. (p. 28) — Eckhart Tolle

One would expect an actress to stand onscreen mostly as a caricature. If she would say, "I'm selling shoes," you would believe her. She says it and it creates this fiction, non-fiction perception of the film. People believe it because she says it. If she said, "I'm a butcher," people would believe it too, I think. — Isabelle Huppert

I think fiction can help us find everything. You know, I think that in fiction you can say things and in a way be truer than you can be in real life and truer than you can be in non-fiction. There's an accuracy to fiction that people don't really talk about - an emotional accuracy. — A.M. Homes

Freedom found me the day I realized I was not bound to witchcraft. The FATHER was waiting, He was scanning the horizon for the day I would realize I could come home. And He ran to welcome me into His loving arms. — Kristine McGuire

Memory holds you back, Imagination pushes you forward. — Keerthi Singhe

spending life is easier than living life. — Ruchika Rastogi

It's all about the spirit. Every man, woman and child should be seen as a spirit first, before anything else. We are all spirits in the first instance. — Andrew Agbonlahor

You Never Have a Second Chance for a First Good Impression — Doris-Maria Heilmann

Read everything. Read fiction and non-fiction, read hot best sellers and the classics you never got around to in college. — Jennifer Weiner

I read a lot; fiction and non-fiction are the mediums I find most edifying and inspiring. I watch movies and listen to music and take lots and lots of walks. Nature is a nice reset button for me, it's how I get a lot of thinking done. — Carrie Brownstein

I like reading a lot. Jeffrey Archer and Robert Ludlum are my favourite authors. I love making realistic cinema, so I read non-fiction more. — Madhur Bhandarkar

Knowing that you have a soul bright and clear like the sun, perceiving and feeling that soul, you will realize that it is very precious and beautiful. When
you consider yourself important and precious, you will begin to feel the same way toward other forms of life and toward the world. — Ilchi Lee

A vow is a heavenly created obligation in motion that only ends when fully completed. — Lizelle DuPlessis

It's not only how much money you make. It's what you do with it that determines your financial condition. — Sandra S. Simmons

Non-fiction, and in particular the literary memoir, the stylised recollection of personal experience, is often as much about character and story and emotion as fiction is. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

River smiled sweetly at his tormentors and told them, "If you want to kick my ass, go ahead. Just explain to me why you're doing it."
After a confused pause, one of the skinheads said, "Ah, you wouldn't be worth it."
"We're all worth it, man," River said with a beatific smile. "We're all worth millions of planets and stars and galaxies and universes. — Gavin Edwards

Until quite recently women's histories were largely overlooked but in the wake of feminism there has been increasing interest in retrieving them. — Alison Weir

When you're writing non-fiction, you go as far as you can go, and then ethically you have to stop. You can't go. You can't suppose. You can't imagine. And I think there's something in human nature that wants to finish the story. — Geraldine Brooks

I was trained mainly as a short story writer and that's how I started writing, but I've also become very interested in non-fiction, just because I got a couple of magazine jobs when I was really poor and needed the money and it turned out that non-fiction was much more interesting than I thought it was. — David Foster Wallace

In the ensuing chapters, we will look in some detail at particular manifestations of the modern scientific ideology and the false paths down which it has led us. We will consider how biological determinism has been used to explain and justify inequalities within and between societies and to claim that those inequalities can never be changed. We will see how a theory of human nature has been developed using Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection to claim that social organization is also unchangeable because it is natural. We will see how problems of health and disease have been located within the individual so that the individual becomes a problem for society to cope with rather than society becoming a problem for the individual. And we will see how simple economic relationships masquerading as facts of nature can drive the entire direction of biological research and technology. — Richard C. Lewontin

The Bible is a book of Science. Secular Humanism is a religion of mythology. — Michael J. Findley

I have been in recent years the author of a bestiary and director of some atlas projects; I've written criticism, editorials, reports from a few front lines, letters, a great many political essays ... , more personal stuff, essays for artists' books, and more ... Nonfiction is the whole realm from investigative journalism to prose poems, from manifestos to love letters, from dictionaries to packing lists. — Rebecca Solnit