Popular Fiction Quotes

“His need had been so strong it frightened him because they almost sensed each other’s pain. They were kindred spirits.”
― Diane L. Kowalyshyn, Crossbones

“The Great Spirit had shown mercy and had given him access to the most powerful weapon of all—love.”
― Diane L. Kowalyshyn, Crossbones

“Transients had staked claims on either side of the water. Cardboard houses, makeshift tents, and tattered chairs and couches were scattered like blowflies on shit.
Though shit would have smelled better.”
― Diane L. Kowalyshyn, Crossbones

“In a daze, he turned to see Arthur’s soul, the darkest of shadows, grappling with the heavy oak, swinging it shut, confining Keme—hammering the lock in place.”
― Diane L. Kowalyshyn, Crossbones

“He pulled his finger out of his nose so quickly Arthur thought his head might collapse.”
― Diane L. Kowalyshyn, Crossbones

“You don’t have any reason to be mad at me. You stole my life and I stole it back.”
― Diane L. Kowalyshyn, Crossbones

“One of the most glorious, yet tragic, things about being human was that, sometimes, you just had to learn things for yourself. Call it a flaw, call it a blessing, call it life. If everyone learned from everyone else’s mistakes, the world would be perfect.”
― Bart Hopkins, Like

“Journalism and popular fiction have merged, and the graphic and the plausible have become an end in themselves. The contemporary public plainly prefers mirrors to windows.”
― Gore Vidal, Homage to Daniel Shays: Collected Essays, 1952-1972

“This book is entitled The Year of Reading Dangerously. It is the true story of the year I spent reading some of the greatest and most famous books in the world, and two by Dan Brown.”
― Andy Miller, The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life

“[N]othing can be more disastrous than the view that the cinema can and should replace popular written fiction. The elements which it excludes are precisely those which give the untrained mind its only access to the imaginative world. There is death in the camera.”
― C.S. Lewis, On Stories

“But (he explained to me, when I objected) what the people want is something that looks at first sight like real life, but which actually turns out to be a fairy tale with virtue triumphant, evil utterly vanquished, a positive, uplifting message, a gutsy, kick-ass female lead and, if at all possible, unicorns. Also, I told him, what they want is something that looks new and completely original but is actually the same old story we've all known and loved since we were kids. Exactly, he said.”
― K.J. Parker