Fourth Wall Quotes

“I am not the heroine of this story.

And I'm not trying to be cute. It's the truth. I'm diagnosed borderline and seriously fucked-up. I hold grudges. I bottle my hate until it ferments into poison, and then I get high off the fumes. I'm completely dysfunctional and that's the way I like it, so don't expect a character arc where I finally find Redemption, Growth, and Change, or learn How to Forgive Myself and Others.”
― Leah Raeder, Black Iris

“So,” Lauren said. “You help ghosts with unfulfilled wishes cross over to the astral plane for judgment.”
“Yes.”
“And you hunt demons.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re married to an angel.”
“Yes.”
She paused. “…so basically, you’re Dean Winchester.”
I made an exasperated sound. “I am NOT.”
She smirked. “Yeah, sure.”
― Kyoko M., The Holy Dark

“Do me a favor, doc?"

"Anything, Captain."

"Stop italicizing the word 'Captain' when you say it."

"Go easy on the fourth wall there, sir."
-Captain Andreyasn & Doctor Bunnigus”
― Howard Tayler, Resident Mad Scientist

“Don't make a wall of glass between your play and the people watching. Don't forget they were once children, who enjoyed being read to, or sung to sleep.”
― Sarah Ruhl, 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write: On Umbrellas and Sword Fights, Parades and Dogs, Fire Alarms, Children, and Theater

“I refuse to give readers an uplifting faux experience engineered to comfort them and perpetuate the sociopolitical and economic status quo."
"Who died and made you Bertolt Brecht?”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club 2

“I already killed you once... And I bet you’ll come back again and again... No matter how many times I slaughter you. Your tendency to come back from the brink of death has nothing to do with your healing factor. Your mutant power isn’t regeneration. It’s popularity.”
― Cullen Bunn, Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe #3

“I’d normally spare you the details, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of writing a story.”
― J.S. Mason, The Stork Ate My Brother...And Other Totally Believable Stories

“
Don't get me wrong, I'm still not trying to die, but watching Valentino live through his End Day has been rough. It's hard not to feel like the author of his story is some cruel bastard who won't give him any wins. There's so many ways he could've died by now-gunshot or beat down with a bat or smashing his head on the curb or that fall back at the apartment or run over in the middle of the street—and he's surviving for what? To get rejected by his agent, and find out his sister is still stuck back home? I can't celebrate my life knowing his final hours are not working out for him.”
― Adam Silvera, The First to Die at the End

“But I’m sure you, dear Reader, are cleverer
than that. For if it really took only so long as Lydia suspected to save the Zs, then there would be much less of this book left than there is, wouldn’t there?”
― Millie Florence, Lydia Green Of Mulberry Glen

“Well, sir," Mr Braynes took a deep breath, "the truth is I do have a strange and wondrous tale to relate; a tale for which the ending has yet to be written."
"You mean Hold's making this up as he goes?"
"Who?"
"Never mind. Please, go on.”
― James Hold, In the Footsteps of Cthulhu

“The most inexplicable paradox of the work of art is that it seems to exist for itself and yet not for itself; that it addresses itself to a concrete, historically and sociologically conditioned public, but seems, at the same time, to want to have no knowledge at all of a public.”
― Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art: Volume 4: Naturalism, Impressionism, The Film Age

“Harry Kane used a word your publisher will cut.”
― Larry Niven, A Gift from Earth

“The wolves were now permanently mute out of almost three week long perpetual fear of the penguin, and this was agreeable to the penguin, who was much pleased, contrary to the redundancy of the latter part of this sentence where he certainly was not pleased.”
― J.S. Mason, The Ghost Therapist...And Other Grand Delights

“I prefer writing about savvy characters, especially women, who think they have the world on a string.”
― Kristin Miller

“Meeting up once a year on the same date sounds like a really good basis for a romance novel. If you fictionalized our story I'd add it to the top of my TBR.”
― Colleen Hoover, November 9

“As our heroes press on down the tunnel, the golden light grows ever brighter with every corner they turn. What can be its source? Whence comes this beauteous luminescence? What treasure can it betoken? And most importantly of all, who writes this stuff? I mean, really, 'beauteous luminescence'?”
― Jonathan Trueman, The Treacle People: Still Sticky