Robert Kurson Quotes

People don't come out for book events. They want to feel an emotion and be entertained.

My wife read Narc as well and was really into it.

Because the kind of nonfiction I write has a plot, the events and transactions that make up a life, nonfiction offers me a break from plotting.

I love comedy, but it's dramas that stick with me.

The architecture of a story can be a little bit different if it's a true story.

The name of the album is 'Non-Fiction'. And, I'm calling it that because the name of every song on this album is derived from a true story. Now, some of the stories are mine. Some of the stories belong to some of my fans.

As a reader since very early, I have found myself drawn to rants.

I'm not really a book person, to be honest.

I love reading books that can break my heart.

You need to have a reader's sympathy in order to accomplish anything. It's like at a reading, I find it's better to read something funny than to read something tragic. It just goes over better because you have a finite amount of time with somebody. Of course, in a book, you have a lot of time. But you still do want to make a certain impression right when you begin.

There is an extraordinary power in storytelling that stirs the imagination and makes an indelible impression on the mind.

All fiction, if it's successful, is going to appeal to the emotions. Emotion is really what fiction is all about. That's not to say fiction can't be thoughtful, or present some interesting or provocative ideas to make us think. But if you want to present an intellectual argument, nonfiction is a better tool. You can drive a nail with a shoe but a hammer is a better tool for that. But fiction is about emotional resonance, about making us feel things on a primal and visceral level.

It [moviemaking] is about entertaining audiences with great characters and great stories, you want to make people laugh, you want to make people cry, you want to have great music that is memorable. You want a movie that, as soon as it's over, you want to watch it again, just like that. That's what it is, whether it's live-action, animation, hand drawn, computer, special effects, puppet animation, it doesn't matter. That's the goal of a filmmaker.

Children who are read to learn two things: First, that reading is worthwhile, and second, that they are worthwhile.

I have no liking for novels or stories - none in the world; and so, whenever I read one - which is not oftener than once in two years, and even in these same cases I seldom read beyond the middle of the book - my distaste for the vehicle always taints my judgment of the literature itself, as a matter of course; and also of course makes my verdict valuless. Are you saying "You have written stories yourself." Quite true: but the fact that an Indian likes to scalp people is no evidence that he likes to be scalped.

The job of reading is to use stories as a way into seeing other people as we see ourselves

I really think one of the greatest allies you can have is the imagination of your audience.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.

Your movie should lull people into a place of openness and vulnerability. If it is just a diatribe, it's never going to work.

I think the best writers are voracious readers who pick up the cadences and the feel of narration through a number of different books. And you begin by maybe copying the style of writers that really knocked you out.

I do 30 to 40 books a year, so it's a fair amount of reading. Back and forth between nonfiction and fiction. I usually have three or four things that are open on my desk, on my bed, on audiobook in the car.

Music and movie scripts are books. You want to be literally moved and that's the sort of things I look for.

I will defend the importance of bedtime stories to my last gasp.

I don't like to read nonfiction. To me, fact is something I can look up.

My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.