Life & Wisdom Quote by Jonathan Carroll

A denial this emphatic is rarely just a filing-cabinet preference; its real target is the way genres police perception. When Jonathan Carroll says, "I've never seen myself as a fantasy writer - ever", the dash and the repeat hammer home a refusal of custody: he won't let the category take ownership of the work, the reader, or the ambition behind it. "Fantasy writer" here isn’t merely a descriptor, it’s a cultural box with assumptions attached - escapism, world-building as an end in itself, the expectation of lore over interiority. Carroll’s insistence reads like a preemptive strike against being misread.

The subtext is familiar to anyone whose fiction runs on the voltage of the uncanny: surreal elements can be a method, not a destination. Carroll’s novels often let the impossible leak into the ordinary with the intimacy of a psychological truth rather than the architecture of a secondary world. He’s claiming allegiance to emotional realism even when the events aren’t realistic. The "ever" suggests he’s been asked this question enough times to develop an immune response - likely by marketing departments, reviewers, bookstore shelving, maybe even fans who want him to be a mascot for a movement.

Context matters: for decades, Anglo-American publishing has treated "literary" and "genre" as rival nations. Carroll’s line is an artist’s border-crossing visa: I use these tools, but I don’t belong to your map. The quote works because it’s both defensive and liberating, a declaration that imagination can be serious without asking permission from the fantasy aisle.