Every writer knows he is spurious; every fiction writer would rather be credible than authentic.

I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer.

I'm not a science fiction writer, I'm a physicist.

Fiction is nothing but non-fiction couched to conceal the identity of the writer.

There are some subjects that can only be tackled in fiction.

The merit of 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,' then - or its offence, depending where you stood - was not that it was authentic, but that it was credible.