David Shields is a creative non-fiction writer, and his book ‘Reality Hunger: A Manifesto’ is written as a series of individual snippets of his past; the web of his previous experiences.  There are some fantastic quotes in here, and I’ve selected a few of my favourites.

“Collage’s parts always seem to be competing for a place in some unfinished scene.”

“The law of mosaics: how to deal with parts in the absence of wholes.”

“Conventional fiction teaches the reader that life is a coherent, fathomable whole that concludes in neatly wrapped-up revelation.  Life, though – standing on a street corner, channel surfing, trying to navigate the web or a declining relationship, hearing that a close friend died last night – flies at us in bright splinters.”

“A mosaic, made out of broken dishes, makes no attempt to hide the fact that it’s made out of broken dishes, in fact flaunts it.”

“Momentum, in literary mosaic, derives not from narrative but from the subtle, progressive buildup of thematic resonances.”

“You don’t need a story.  The question is How long do you not need a story?”

“I hate quotations.”

Shields, David. Reality Hunger: A Manifesto. New York: Vintage, 2011.