57 Inspiring Literary Fiction Quotes

Immerse yourself in the world of literary fiction, where words transcend their ordinary bounds and offer profound insights into the human experience. Whether you're a lifelong reader or just beginning to explore this rich genre, literary fiction holds the power to inspire, challenge, and transform. In this carefully curated collection, we've gathered 57 of the most inspiring quotes from the realm of literary fiction—quotes that capture the beauty, complexity, and depth of human emotions and relationships. Each quote is a doorway, inviting you to delve deeper into the stories that have shaped our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. As you journey through this selection, may these words ignite your imagination and resonate with the timeless truths that great literature so vividly portrays.

1. “If you don't read my book, I'm not coming to your birthday party.” - Tim Yeager

2. “Good writing is good writing. In many ways, it’s the audience and their expectations that define a genre. A reader of literary fiction expects the writing to illuminate the human condition, some aspect of our world and our role in it. A reader of genre fiction likes that, too, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of the story.” - Rosemary Clement-Moore

3. “She remembers this phrase from his final months of law school, when he brought home the books on starting up a business. He'd read ravenously for several weeks and then predicted: "Well, darling, we're going to be rich." Now he slaps shut the last of his books and announces, with equal assurance: "We're all going to die.” - Jacob Appel

4. “Bah! You want to hear the vilest thing a man’s done and you want him to be a hero at the same time!” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

5. “She felt the cold blast from the sterile air conditioning on her bare arms and thighs, as she ambled down the center of the shopping complex's ground floor.The scene was a swirl of candy bright lights--the Victoria's Secret fuchsia signboard, signboards which lured one to purchase "confidence," or "sexual appeal," or whatever it was that was being advertised--the fluorescent lights in each store, contrasting with the shiny, black-tiled walls and eye-catching speckled marble tiles on the ground.One could lick the floor--the tiles were spotless, clean like the fake air she was breathing in, like the atoms and cells in her that were decaying in stale neglect.” - Jess C. Scott

6. “Quiero esperar en silencio la séptima ola. Si, aquí cuentan la historia indómita de la séptima ola. Las primeras seis son previsibles y equilibradas. Se condicionan unas a otras, no deparan sorpresas. Mantienen la continuidad. Pero, !cuidado con la séptima ola¡ La séptima es imprevisible. Durante mucho tiempo pasa inadvertida, participa en el monótono proceso, se adapta a sus predecesoras. Pero a veces estalla. Siempre ella, siempre la séptima. Porque es despreocupada, inocente, rebelde, barre con todo, lo cambia todo. Para ella no existe el antes, solo el ahora. Y después todo es distinto. ¿Mejor o peor? Eso solo pueden decirlo quienes estuvieron arrastrados por ella, quienes tuvieron el coraje de enfrentarla, de dejarse cautivar...” - Daniel Glattauer

7. “He crossed the stage, pushed the bench back and sat, hands resting on the keyboard cover. After a moment, he took off the cloth, and uncovered the keyboard. He rested his fingers on the keys, but didn’t depress them, simply sitting there for a moment, in the dark and silent auditorium, and closed his eyes. He belonged here. Not on a stage, but with a piano. It was the only place he felt alive. The groupies, the concerts, the strangely worshipful perks of fame, none of them made him feel complete like these moments alone did.” - Kristine Kathryn Rusch

8. “Life if curious when reduced to its essentials” - Jean Rhys

9. “All I want is to sleep--to dream. Life is better in dreams.” - Christina Westover

10. “That's the trouble with innocents. They aren't innocent of doing, just of knowing what they're doing.” - Jack Butler

11. “Question: You’re 21-years-old, a young adult writing mature adult literary fiction. Imaj: Yes, I feel creativity is an ageless thing.” - Imaj

12. “If loving the written word is wrong...I don't want to be right!” - Junnita Jackson

13. “If you want to be a good lair, tell people what they want to hear. (From Hot dogs under The Dakota)” - Johannes Gouws

14. “Write from Beyond what you know. From the authority of your senses." -author of Meditations in Green” - Steven Wright

15. “Splendid . . . a novel for anyone who has a sharp eye and ear for life.” - NPR s All Things Considered

16. “And there was nothing quite like the surprise attack of a snarling black bear, even one missing all forty-two teeth, to urge someone back to work. Waking up with several hundred mud-encrusted, reeking pounds on top of you — your neck suffering a hickey of epic proportions — just pushed the limits on what was tolerable.” - Cole Alpaugh

17. “It was a year ago today your daughter went missing.’ Bagg had closed his eyes, feeling the death going on inside.” - Cole Alpaugh

18. “Gracie leaned out the back, craning her neck as far as she could around the side, trying to catch the wind in her nose and flapping lips. She loved driving, and this car was much faster than the truck which hauled her cage. It was very green here, and the sun flashed and flickered behind the tall trees. There were a million smells along this road, both old and just born. She closed her eyes and huffed, pretending she was flying.” - Cole Alpaugh

19. “Beautiful day out there,” I said, perching on the stool and crossing my legs. “It’s autumn, Sunday, great weather, and crowded everywhere you go. Relaxing indoors like this is the best thing you can do on such a nice day. It’s exhausting to get into those crowds. And the air is bad. I mostly do laundry on Sundays—wash the stuff in the morning, hang it out on the roof of my dorm, take it in before the sun goes down, do a good job of ironing it. I don’t mind ironing at all. There’s a special satisfaction in making wrinkled things smooth. And I’m pretty good at it, too. Of course, I was lousy at it at first. I put creases in everything. After a month of practice, though, I knew what I was doing. So Sunday is my day for laundry and ironing. I couldn’t do it today, of course. Too bad: wasted a perfect laundry day.” - Haruki Murakami

20. “There's something in your eyes that scares me,"Max whispired, looking through the window.Landon took her face into his hand and made her look into his eyes "What?" he asked. "What do you see?""Fear," she answered plainly. "I see fear” - Shawn Kirsten Maravel

21. “It's amazing how close I have been, all this time, to my old life. And yet the distance that divides me from it is vast.” - Lauren Oliver

22. “To be free means always leaving...or returning to a place where leaves never fall.” - Rich Shapero

23. “Some ghosts are so quiet you would hardly know they were there.” - Bernie Mcgill

24. “I can see the singles ad now: ‘Three straight men, a gay man and a woman trapped in one body, seeks a lady willing to share her lipstick and shoes. A perfect match must enjoy cleaning automatic weapons, dividing anti-psychotic drugs into a weekly pill keeper, and long walks on the beach.’ The calls would just pour in.” - Autumn Rosen

25. “Still speaking over me,' she says, meeting my eyes and scoffing. 'You are still that worthless little girl.” - Rebecca Berto

26. “The moment weighs down on me, threatening to unstitch my seams and expose me to the world.” - Rebecca Berto

27. “The cloth was wrinkled and twisted from the struggle. His forehead was damp, and he lay his forearm across it and stared across the room at the clock. Its pendulum rotated and gathered momentum only to slow and reverse its course. He watched it for a time and slid out of the bed to dress.” - Dave Newell

28. “She was saved from prettiness by the intensity of her gaze.” - Paul Bowles

29. “We're just like the antiques. We grow old and get scarred and beat up along the way, and the only question becomes whether we're going to make it until we realize what we already have is valuable." --Faith Bass Darling's Last Garage Sale” - Lynda Rutledge

30. “True love never dies for it is lust that fades away. Love bonds for a lifetime but lust just pushes away.-Alicia Barnhart” - Lysious

31. “Yes, the essence of every love is a child, and it makes no difference at all whether it has ever actually been conceived or born. In the algebra of love a child is the symbol of the magical sum of two beings.” - Milan Kundera

32. “The Lord giveth and the world taketh away.” - Maryann Austin

33. “A novelist must wrestle with all mysteries and strangeness of life itself, and anyone who dies not wish to accept that grand, bone-chilling commission should write book reviews, editorials, or health-insurance policies instead.” - Pat Conroy

34. “Ava glanced over at Napoleon, who was walking back toward them. She smirked at Juliet and said, "Sweetie, you are *not* the one.” - Jay Fingers

35. “The Booker thing was a catalyst for me in a bizarre way. It’s perceived as an accolade to be published as a ‘literary’ writer, but, actually, it’s pompous and it’s fake. Literary fiction is often nothing more than a genre in itself. I’d always read omnivorously and often thought much literary fiction is read by young men and women in their 20s, as substitutes for experience.” - Neil Cross

36. “Nothing is ‘wrong’ with me, Dan. What’s wrong with you? she said in the same eerily quiet voice, dark eyes fixated on Dan, as she breathed heavily.” - Martin Hopkins

37. “The slick concrete reflected the facades of the work weary - grey, cracked and old,but more importantly, trodden upon.” - Martin Hopkins

38. “Join us. Play the game. It will bring you an untold number of rewards and you will finally have some direction and purpose in your lives. Take control of yourselves and those around you. Bend them to your will and all worldly pleasures will be yours...” - Martin Hopkins

39. “Needs are stronger than liking.” - Ravindra Shukla

40. “Think of literary fiction as a meal with intricate scents, flavors, and textures that you can’t recognize unless you chew with your eyes closed.” - Jessica Bell

41. “She let her mind drift, thinking about new lingerie designs, wishing she'd brought along her sketchpad. Inspiration could strike at the most inconvenient times--in the shower, in the car, on this road--but she was grateful it was with her again, an old companion with whom she was getting reacquainted, pleased to find they could take up where they'd left off, as if there'd been no estrangement at all.” - Heather Barbieri

42. “I couldn't bring myself to ask Matka why they had taken him. She pretended that he'd gone away on business. I pretended I knew nothing. My brother and sister believed the lie. There were so many lies that we had to live with...and secrets.” - F.C. Malby

43. “Don't ever let anyone tell you that things can't be changed, that things can't be done. The can and they will, if we are united in what we believe.” - F.C. Malby

44. “The lines in the corners of her eyes spoke of years of wisdom, as a tree with the number of rings increasing with each passing year. She was a small frame of a woman with piercing eyes that suggested that they knew you, understood you even.” - F.C. Malby

45. “The others moved in like a wake of vultures, ready to devour their prey. she had seen it on television once. 'Scavengers,' Tatinek called them. They swoop in and feed off the carcasses of animals that are too weak to escape - lots of them on battlefields. This looked the same, only the victim wasn't there, just his writing, his typewriter, and bits of dark paper.” - F.C. Malby

46. “To Jana's mind everybody seemed happy to see BAbichka and resisted returning her, like a misplaced package sent to the wrong address. It was as if the recipient opened it up, knowing it should be returned, but wondering who long they could legitimately keep it before being changed with theft.” - F.C. Malby

47. “I don't know, Benes. I'm not sure I've ever really understood women for that kind of commitment.' He flipped his beer mat up int the air with his index finger and caught it in his hand.” - F.C. Malby

48. “9 November 1989. A day nobody would forget. She had heard rumours about the wall.” - F.C. Malby

49. “As the sun lowered into the city's skyline, casting an orange glow over the islands, Jana could feel people's hopes rising.” - F.C. Malby

50. “As people's hopes soared, Jana felt a tinge of fear.” - F.C. Malby

51. “Mr Martinek turned back to Jana. 'Thirty-eight per cent alcohol, sixty-two per cent fire - all the way from Karlovy Vary.” - F.C. Malby

52. “The sublime beauty was almost hidden withing the castle walls. She believed that the treasured things in life were often hard to find - a pearl in an oyster shell, a kind word in the heat of the moment.” - F.C. Malby

53. “He nodded, looking across the room at the sea of photographers and journalists. The microphones spread around him like birds waiting to be fed.” - F.C. Malby

54. “A Quote from Monty's journal in GOD MUST BE WEEPING. "I felt as anonymous as a grain of sand.” - J.D. Winston

55. “The Professor is coming...” - M Hopkins

56. “Despite their macabre imaginations, they don't believe the things they say, all those things about magic and fantômes. But I do. I know he lingers. I've heard his voice, soft as a lover's whisper.” - Sara Stark

57. “Time seemed to drag with dreamlike slowness, like a knife through cold honey, and the room took on a surreal golden sheen as if I was looking through that same jar of honey. Maybe at that moment, the sun shone just right though the grimy windows, but the woman, the shelves, the jars, everything in the room appeared in tones of gold and sepia, except for the painting behind the counter. From behind the shopkeeper's head, a fluorescent Mary and Jesus glared at me, their cartoon-like faces reproaching me for being there.” - Sara Stark