“
I don’t read fiction. I find it a waste of time. There are so many amazing things that are real; I don’t need to spend any time on a made-up story.
—

Jason Fried

maniacalrage:

This makes me sad. I appreciate Fried’s frankness, his passion and his ideas, but I will never understand someone who can simply swear off fiction so easily. Does he not watch films? Plays? Read poetry? Has he sworn off television and radio shows? Or is his anti-fiction stance limited only to books?

Can he not appreciate both true and fictional stories? Does he feel great novelists or playwrights or screenwriters have all wasted their lives?

Sometimes “getting real” can go too far.

I don’t disagree with the sentiment that “getting real” can go a little too far, but Jason does clarify a bit in this Hacker News thread.  Essentially he says that he does watch TV shows and movies, but that he’s a slow reader, and if he’s going to invest dozens and dozens of hours into reading, he’d rather read non-fiction.  I still have no idea how you can find reading fiction a universal waste of time, though - too far, indeed.