fiction

Limp finally spoke. __o you think you could kill a person and not get all crazy about it?

In the Ottoman times, there were itinerant storytellers called "meddah. " They would go to coffee houses, where they would tell a story in front of an audience, often improvising. With each new person in the story, the meddah would change his voice, impersonating that character. Everybody could go and listen, you know ordinary people, even the sultan, Muslims and non-Muslims. Stories cut across all boundaries. Like "The Tales of Nasreddin Hodja," which were very popular throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans and Asia. Today, stories continue to transcend borders

It never occurs to one to think whether she is pretty or ugly. One just surrenders to her charm.

How is it possible you have caught me off guard, he seemed to ask. Exactly where have I miscalculated the velocities, how have I misjudged the vectors?

People say it's not what happens in your life that matters, it's what you think happened. But this qualification, obviously, did not go far enough. It was quite possible that the central event of your life could be something that didn't happen, or something you thought didn't happen. Otherwise there'd be no need for fiction, there'd only be memoirs and histories...

Before the next minute had passed, they had all fallen to the ground. Just like that. As though someone had reached inside and turned off a switch."What happened?" Matt asked, gasping.I went from one person to the next, trying to wake them up, but they were all dead, wrote Daft Donald.

I have always been fascinated by the ocean, to dip a limb beneath its surface and know that I'm touching eternity, that it goes on forever until it begins here again.

When you least expect it, you run in to an old friend from school, or the neighbour__ cat, not Mary the Virgin Mother of God.

Pain is an inevitable part when you truly love.

Make sure he's worth it. She had thought it so many times it had become a part of her. Like her tongue filling her mouth, so this tenet filled her being.

I have no problem in moving a date one way or another or coming up with a subplot that gets my characters in (or out) of a fix more rambunctiously than the extant records show.

Writing historical fiction has many common traits with writing sci-fi or fantasy books. The past is another country - a very different world - and historical readers want to see, smell and touch what it was like living there.

She actually isn't so bad, now that I'm getting to know her. She's just a little messy on the outside. But aren't we all?

Amelia nodded her head, "That makes perfect sense.""No is doesn't," jeered Otto."Yes, it does,_ sighed Amelia. "Don't you ever remember anything important?""Of course, I remember how many Star Trek seasons there were and when the Three Stooges were born!

As every reader knows in his or her heart, there is much more to truth than mere fact.

Historical fiction of course is particularly research-heavy. The details of everyday life are there to trip you up. Things that we take for granted, indeed, hardly think about, can lead to tremendous mistakes.

_progress isn't necessarily about change but about things turning out as we want them to

Sarucha (age 8): "Look, down there, I recognize it, ciudad de Jerusalén (the city of Jerusalem)! Jerusalén!, Jerusalén!" she exclaimed.