I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or nonfiction as we commonly understand the distinction: there is only narrative.

A writer's life is so hazardous that anything he does is bad for him. Anything that happens to him is bad: failure's bad, success is bad; impoverishment is bad, money is very, very bad. Nothing good can happen... Except the act of writing.

There is really no fiction or non-fiction; there is only narrative. One mode of perception has no greater claim on the truth than the other; that the distance has perhaps to do with distance - narrative distance - from the characters; it has to do with the kind of voice that is talking, but it certainly hasn't to do with the common distribution between fact and imagination.

And so the ordinary unendurable torments we all experienced were indeed exceptional in the way they were absorbed in each heart.

There is no longer any such thing as fiction or nonfiction; there's only narrative.

Implications of treason are fed like cubes of sugar to the twelve-headed animal which is justice. In ... opening remarks. In the way questions are asked. In support of lines of questioning where cases of treason are cited and the Judge endorses the relevance of the citation.

The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.