“Fiction can remind us — and because of the blood-sport nature of politics, we constantly need reminding — that the players in politics are first human beings.”— John Williams, nytimes.com
“Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.”— Arthur Conan Doyle, amazon.com
“For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.”— Vladimir Nabokov, amazon.com
“Tolstoy was right — the emotions and ideas in fiction are highly contagious, and people tend to overestimate their immunity to them.”— Jonathan Gottschall, amazon.com
“The storytelling mind is allergic to uncertainty, randomness, and coincidence. It is addicted to meaning. If the storytelling mind cannot find meaningful patterns in the world, it will try to impose them. In short, the storytelling mind is a factory that churns out true stories when it can, but will…”— Jonathan Gottschall, amazon.com
“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”— Jonathan Gottschall, amazon.com
“Fiction may be, at least in part, a pleasure technology, a co-opting of language and imagery as a virtual reality device which allows a reader to enjoy pleasant hallucinations like exploring interesting territories, conquering enemies, hobnobbing with powerful people, and winning attractive mates. F…”— Steven Pinker, pinker.wjh.harvard.edu