A Quote by Charles J. Shields

There is more to be pondered in the grain and texture of life than traditional fiction allows. The work of essayists is vital precisely because it permits and encourages self-knowledge in a way that is less indirect than fiction, more open and speculative.

Charles J. Shields

Quote Topics

Because Encourages Essayists Fiction Grain Indirect Knowledge Less Life More Open Permits Precisely Self Self-Knowledge Speculative Texture Than Traditional Vital Way Work

Quote Author

Charles J. Shields
American - Novelist
Born: December 2, 1951

In some ways I spend longer at non-fiction because there are a lot of different threads to bring together. But non-fiction is more reflective than immersive. The problem with fiction sometimes is that you have to leave the real world to enter the fictional one. And that takes so much, goes into your head for so long?.?.?.?I don't know, I just feel less inclined toward that these days, and more inclined to remain in my own life. I do like really good fiction, but it's getting harder to hold my attention in a novel.

Helen Humphreys

I don't think I'm more of a screenwriter than I am a fiction writer. I'm more of a reader than a film-watcher, so I imagine that I'm not approaching fiction or films in a particularly cinematic way.

Miranda July

I write speculative fiction, and in my view, speculative fiction is really just a very intense version of the work of literature in general.

Ken Liu

I haven't written a word of fiction since 2009. I have no desire to write fiction. I did what I did and it's done. There's more to life than writing and publishing fiction. There is another way entirely, amazed as I am to discover it at this late date.

Philip Roth

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 think speculative fiction has fewer unspoken prerequisites than literary fiction for writers of color.

Nnedi Okorafor

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

I'm more thrilled by the short fiction than I expected to be. I've found more pleasure in reading short fiction than I used to. By seeing what kinds of thinking are going on in short fiction. I was also surprised by the panic I've felt, especially at first, when we'd put an issue to bed and then realized we had to put another one together.

Lorin Stein

I have no desire to write fiction. I did what I did, and it's done. There's more to life than writing and publishing fiction. There is another way entirely, amazed as I am to discover it at this late date.

Philip Roth

Action fiction is driven more by what than by who. Put that ticking nuclear suitcase under Manhattan, and it's relatively easy to create suspense. Literary fiction is driven more by who than by what.

Barry Eisler

It is a work of psychogeography, albeit in a less explicit sense than Iain Sinclair's or Will Self's. It had to be fiction though, because I needed that freedom of including whatever belonged, and cutting out whatever didn't. The main fiction in it was matching Julius' generous and self-concealing character to New York's generous and self-concealing character. I think this also adds to my answer about New York's personality in the book.

Teju Cole

Short fiction seems more targeted - hand grenades of ideas, if you will. When they work, they hit, they explode, and you never forget them. Long fiction feels more like atmosphere: it's a lot smokier and less defined.

Paolo Bacigalupi

I obviously read and adore traditional fiction. I teach traditional fiction, I also teach all kind of not-so-traditional fiction. And since I'm such a plot buff, and I'm really such a narrative buff, I can't seem to relinquish my - not just reliance - but excitement about those traditional techniques.

Heidi Julavits

Literary science fiction is a very, very narrow band of the publishing business. I love science fiction in more of a pop-culture sense. And by the way, the line between science fiction and reality has blurred a lot in my life doing deep ocean expeditions and working on actual space projects and so on. So I tend to be more fascinated by the reality of the science-fiction world in which we live.

James Cameron

All of business and all of politics is essentially fiction to those who live them. I have more experience with fiction than most senators because I do it all day, so their world didn't seem that foreign to me.