M. John Harrison Quotes

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building.

M. John Harrison

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Quotes to Explore

• In America, there's a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world.

  

  Barack Obama
  • World
  • America
  • Failure

• The Arab world also won the Nobel with me. I believe that international doors have opened, and that from now on, literate people will consider Arab literature also. We deserve that recognition.

  

  Naguib Mahfouz
  • People
  • World
  • Believe

• All autobiography is storytelling; all writing is autobiography.

  

  J. M. Coetzee
  • Writing
  • Storytelling

• It was really in the Golden Age, between the two world wars, when the pure detective story - of which the locked room mystery is really the ultimate form - became popular.

  

  Otto Penzler
  • World
  • Age
  • Popular

• There's something different that happens when you're writing a song for your own record that you know you're going to sing.

  

  Beck
  • Different
  • Writing
  • Song

• I can sit and analyze everything and beat myself up and say you don't quite sing as good as you used to, you're writing better songs maybe than you used to, but to me it's just the journey.

  

  Vince Gill
  • Up
  • Good
  • Writing

• I come from a world where you get the film done, that's a success.

  

  Abel Ferrara
  • World
  • Done
  • Success

• I'm not going to change the world overnight. It's one person at a time, and hopefully they're people in positions of power who can help people get in those roles and really, truly embrace colorblind casting.

  

  Gabrielle Union
  • People
  • Time
  • World

• When I was writing 'The Windup Girl' and 'Ship Breaker,' I was writing those simultaneously, so I was an unpublished writer, not really having that full sense that these books would go out in the world, that they would be successful, that there would be an audience and that there would be fans of those stories.

  

  Paolo Bacigalupi
  • World
  • Writing
  • Girl

• In certain ways, we, many of us, stopped paying attention to the world. I have to think we would have moved on the whole climate issue in a different way if we'd been paying better attention.

  

  Karen Joy Fowler
  • World
  • Different
  • Think

• I've been writing fiction probably since I was about 6 years old, so it's something that is second nature to me now. I just sit down and start writing. I don't sit down and start writing and it comes out perfectly - it's a process.

  

  Candace Bushnell
  • Writing
  • Nature
  • Start

• I have a Ph.D. in cell biology. And that's really manual labor. I mean, experimental science, you do it with your hands. So it's very different. You're out there in a lab, cleaning test tubes, and it just wasn't that fascinating.

  

  Barbara Ehrenreich
  • Different
  • Science
  • Hands

• I still get excited by working with big names. You have that initial moment of, 'Oh my goodness, I'm going to work with Tom Cruise!'

  

  Malin Akerman
  • Work
  • Moment
  • Goodness

• I've always been a fan of science fiction. My family, we all used to watch 'Star Trek' together, which is kind of a nerdy family activity.

  

  Olivia Wilde
  • Family
  • Together
  • Science

• No more distressing moment can ever face a British government than that which requires it to come to a hard, fast and specific decision.

  

  Barbara Tuchman
  • Government
  • Decision
  • Moment

• From 1999 on - until 2003 - I covered publishing in a weekly column for Wired.com and wrote for several other publications - altogether writing over 150 articles.

  

  M. J. Rose
  • Writing
  • Over
  • Wrote

• Special-interest magazines are dangerous places for writers to start out in because the writing quickly falls into a routine and people are likely to find themselves artistically exhausted when they want to work on something of their own.

  

  Irwin Shaw
  • People
  • Work
  • Writing

• We are learning more about the humanity of the unborn child. Science and truth support the prolife movement.

  

  Candice S. Miller
  • Truth
  • Science
  • Support

• I work with tiny companies, so I don't really live in unicorn world, to be honest.

  

  Aileen Lee
  • World
  • Work
  • Live

• The thing about 'Dark Knight' is its objective is to set Batman into your world, so that you can imagine the moral dilemmas he faces are exactly parallel to moral dilemmas that you would face in this world, today, if you were out there fighting crime dressed like a bat.

  

  Zack Snyder
  • World
  • Today
  • Fighting

• They may well say not only is this not true, but I will put in an injunction to prevent publication. No, stories don't go in unless I'm convinced by the people who write them that they're true. And if I'm wrong, then so be it.

  

  Ian Hislop
  • People
  • May
  • True

• There are a lot of elements when you're writing, or when I'm writing, that are sitting in the back of your mind. I try to let them stay there, because they find their way in more naturally that way.

  

  Kenneth Lonergan
  • Writing
  • Mind

• Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over world-building.

  

  M. John Harrison
  • World
  • Writing
  • Science