FastSaying

A writer's obligation is to invent: to go beyond what did happen and to look at what could have happened but didn't. Fiction writers are born liars.

Tim O'Brien

BeyondBornCouldDidFictionFiction WritersGoHappenHappenedInventLiarsLookObligationWriterWriters

Related Quotes

The writer who position is Christian, and probably also the writer whose position is not, will begin to wonder at this point if there could not be some ugly correlation between our unparalleled prosperity and the stridency of these demands for a literature that shows us the joy of life. He may at least be permitted to ask if these screams for joy would be quite so piercing if joy were really more abundant in our prosperous society.
— Flannery O'Connor
christian-writersfiction-writersfiction-writing
Science fiction writers aren't fortune tellers. Fortune tellers are fakes.
— William Gibson
FictionFiction WritersFortune
You cannot be a good writer of serious fiction if you are not depressed
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
FictionWritersWriting
Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all the tricks and has nothing to say
— Raymond Chandler
ArtFictionWriters
A lie, sometimes, can be truer than the truth, which is why fiction gets written.
— Tim O'Brien
fictionlieson-fiction