The nature of good fiction is that it dwells in ambiguity.

In fiction, you know, there are no borders. You can go anywhere.

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

Books are acts of composition: you compose them. You make music: the music is called fiction.

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.

A period of time is as much an organising principle for a work of fiction as a sense of place. You can do geography, as Faulkner did, or you can dwell on a particular period. It provides the same framework.