The idea of copyright did not exist in ancient times, when authors frequently copied other authors at length in works of non-fiction. This practice was useful, and is the only way many authors' works have survived even in part.
— Richard Stallman
Professional Non Fiction quotations
I did one sci-fi movie. I did 'Gattaca.' I liked 'Gattaca' because that was always the kind of science fiction I really dug, the non-action oriented sci-fi.
As a child, I read science fiction, but from the very beginnings of my reading for pleasure, I read a lot of non-fictional history, particularly historical biography.
Expand the definition of 'reading' to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It's the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won't read shark books forever.
The problem with fiction, it has to be plausible. That's not true with non-fiction.
Fiction and non-fiction are only different techniques of story telling.
For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Non-fiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning.
Don't make a big distinction between fiction and non-fiction. These are arbitrary distinctions.
There's a fine line between fiction and non-fiction and I think I snorted it somewhere in 1979
Without books we're a very uneducated society.
Think of the places books have taken us, the people we've been introduced to (fiction or non-fiction) and how books have allowed us to broaden our vocabulary.
I do, however, feel reasonably strongly the sense that the job of a piece of argumentative scholarly non-fiction is not the same as the job of a piece of fiction.
When you play a non-fiction character it is more responsibility than when you are playing a fiction character because that person lived, and you do want to pay respect to that.
[I like to read] spiritual books, non-fiction, fiction, I have my moods.
I think fiction can help us find everything.
You know, I think that in fiction you can say things and in a way be truer than you can be in real life and truer than you can be in non-fiction. There's an accuracy to fiction that people don't really talk about - an emotional accuracy.
I am conscious of trying to stretch the boundaries of non-fiction writing.
It's always surprised me how little attention many non-fiction writers pay to the formal aspects of their work.
I have two pairs of reading glasses. One pair is for reading fiction, the other for non-fiction. I've read the Bible twice wearing each pair, and it's the same.
I grew up poor in crappy situations various crappy situations.
What kept me sane was reading and music. I had so many different literary tastes growing up, be it fiction like Stephen King or Piers Anthony or non-fiction like reading Hunter S. Thompson essays or reading the Beats. I was a huge fan of the Beat movement.
Perhaps this is the purpose of all art, all writing, on the murders, fiction and non-fiction: Simply to participate.
Read everything. Read fiction and non-fiction, read hot best sellers and the classics you never got around to in college.
For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.
I'm writing another novel and I know what I'm going to do after, which may be something more like this again, maybe some strange mixture of fiction and non-fiction.
I read very widely, both non-fiction and fiction, so I don't think there's a single writer who influences me.
I cannot say how strongly I object to people using other people's writing as research. Research is non-fiction, especially for horror, fantasy, science fiction. Do not take your research from other people's fiction. Just don't.
Because I'm such a creative person, and I've always got my nose in a book, I suppose it was only a matter of time before non-fiction turned into fiction again. But I never consciously set out to become a writer and I never thought I'd be doing the things I'm doing today.
I was looking to do something non-fiction because I had done a strip, 'My Mom Was a Schizophrenic.' I really enjoyed the process of doing that strip, despite its subject matter. To do it I'd had to do a lot of research and reading and I figured I'd like to do that again.
You can tell within a sentence if something is fiction or non-fiction.
You can tell in the artifice of the language or the care of the construction the difference between art and life.
To my mind, the prose in a non-fiction work that's going to endure has to be of the same quality as the prose in a work of fiction that endures.
I try and make non-fiction films that feel like fiction, so I'm always looking for the subtext and that's what really excites me.
I love the opportunity to just let my imagination run riot! Non-fiction can be very restrictive.
I like to read biographies of authors that I love, like Richard Yates.
I also like to see what non-fiction authors are out there. My bible is Something Happened. It's one of the greatest books I've ever read. But if I don't read a Dostoevsky soon I'm going to kill myself.
See, I have no journalism in my background, so I wasn't practised at research or writing non-fiction, nor at handling the truth in a journalistic way. Journalists know when to call a halt and write something, but I kept on looking for answers.
All that non-fiction can do is answer questions. It's fiction's business to ask them.
Writing is writing, and stories are stories.
Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?
We are living in an era of such interesting new forms, and certainly narrative non-fiction has emerged as a major form. People who are great writers don't have to write novels anymore.
It can stand in the way of narration in cases where we want the protagonist to actually go through some kind of catharsis while our own (non-fictional) experiences and stories lead to something banal or completely uninteresting.
I'd probably be a super wealthy guy if I had sat around writing songs and getting them placed like everyone else I know. But I write songs about people or after I meet them and they're somewhat biographical - they're fiction but also non-fiction.