Whitley Strieber Quotes

Literary fiction - if we must use the term - is not the plotless, meandering indulgence that its detractors would have you believe.

I think the short story is a very underrated art form. We know that novels deserve respect.

To me, characters are at the heart of great literature.

The instant that movies became described as character driven was the instant when characters stopped mattering in movies. In other words, the birth of the notion of the character-driven movie coincided with the birth of movies in which characters were incidental to the very activities in which they engaged.

I started thinking about the endings of novels not because I think endings are so important, but because I think they're actually not as important as they're sometimes given credit for.

I think that whenever a book is not a challenge, I'm telling the wrong story.

I used to say, read as much as you can. Now I say, read the best that you can, the stories that resonate with you, the books that are important to you. Try to read, not only as a reader, but also as a writer, to deconstruct how the author is telling his or her story.

My job is to form the people, the story, the sentences. Every reader will bring their own life and their own history to the story and shape it accordingly. I guess you can say it's like I am sending them a letter.

I asked a French critic a couple of years ago why my books did so well in France. He said it was because in my novels people both act and think. I got a kick out of that.

The thing about the classics it that they are such great characters, they have a great deal of depth and different layers to them. I always find that very stimulating to play.

I've always enjoyed that kind of thing - thinking about the production of narrative and why it is that when we read a novel, we don't notice the fact that someone who might be very close-mouthed or tight-lipped is perfectly willing to tell us a story in 600 or 700 pages.

Granted there are only seven stories in the universe. And I agree with that. But give me a great variation of those stories. And literate.

I was an English-literature major, and that's all about stories and narratives.

I read many wonderful novels, though I now find the idea of literary fiction obsolete.

In 'Min Kamp,' I wanted to see how far it was possible to take realism before it would be impossible to read.

I like looking at a book and asking myself, 'How do I replicate that experience I just had as a reader?'

I believe that sometimes, when we talk about books, we're talking about the big picture - how they're relevant.

No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce.

Don't go around asking the question, 'Is this character likeable?' and expect that to be compatible with serious literary endeavours. That's not what it's about.

Fiction needs writers and readers, and writers should cultivate both.

I retain characters more often than plot, but what seems to happen is that I latch on to specific moments, turns of phrase, and dialogue as touchstones for me to recall what happened in the book. Kind of like freeze-frame.

A writer can be subjective, even digressive, or introspective and certainly judgmental. This is a simplification, of course, but as a general rule, it holds true.

Most writers of entertainment fiction tend to receive controversial reviews.

The essential gesture of the contemporary novel is to get people to turn the page, to entertain them, and I hate that. I want a novel where the gesture is towards existential investigation on every page. That, to me, is thrilling.

A book makes claims of literary art.