The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty. People who read your books are sick, sad,… — Donna Tartt Copy Share Image
The future is unwritten. there are best case scenarios. There are worst-case scenarios. both of them are great fun to write about… — Bruce Sterling Copy Share Image
For novelists or musicians, if they really want to create something, they need to go downstairs and find a passage to get… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn "reasonable" and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid… — Sinclair Lewis Copy Share Image
America’s founding ideal was the principle of individual rights. Nothing more-and nothing less. The rest-everything that America achieved, everything she became, everything… — Ayn Rand Copy Share Image
It is never possible for a novelist to deny time inside the fabric of his novel: he must cling, however lightly, to… — E. M. Forster Copy Share Image
Literature has neglected the old and their emotions. The novelists never told us that in love, as in other matters, the young… — Isaac Bashevis Singer Copy Share Image
Tony Vigorito has grown a cult following of thousands for one reason—his stuff is fun to read... It’s… filled with the freshness… — Kris Saknussemm Copy Share Image
To sing a song is quite different than to write a poem. I'm not and never will be a novelist, but to… — Sam Shepard Copy Share Image
To write? Because all this is going to vanish. The only thing left will be the prose and poems, the books, what… — James Salter Copy Share Image
The complexion of a novelist is seldom rosy (Paul Bailey once announced to a heavy-hearted audience of novelists at PEN that we… — Jane Gardam Copy Share Image
A novelist can shift view-point if it comes off. ... Indeed, this power to expand and contract perception (of which the shifting… — E. M. Forster Copy Share Image
A man can write one book that can be great, but this doesn't make him a great writer-just the writer of a… — Anthony Burgess Copy Share Image
I think having a coach or an editor or whatever the novelist's producer is could help. If you finish a chapter and… — Craig Finn Copy Share Image
“A philosopher,' said Mrs. Cantanker, stalking across the study, black heels clicking, ruby silks whispering around her ankles, 'is one who attempts… — Stefan Bachmann Copy Share Image
I never wanted to be well-rounded. I do not admire well-rounded people nor their work. So far as I can see, nothing… — Harry Crews Copy Share Image
I feel the responsibility of the novelist is to create a very complex world populated by very complex individuals and to deepen… — Pankaj Mishra Copy Share Image
In America they have to know just what you are-- novelist, poet, playwright... Well, I've been all of them... I think poems… — Robert Penn Warren Copy Share Image
There are many ways of writing badly about painting... There is an 'appreciative' language of threadbare, not inaccurate, but overexposed and irritating… — A. S. Byatt Copy Share Image
I feel that historical novelists owe it to our readers to try to be as historically accurate as we can with the… — Sharon Kay Penman Copy Share Image
He didn't want her; he wanted me. Well, you know how it is." Dalgliesh did know. This, after all, was the commonest,… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're… — John le Carre Copy Share Image
I envied women with signature hair-dos, signature perfumes, signature sign-offs. Novelists who tell Vogue Magazine: “I can’t live without my Smythson notebook,… — Emma Forrest Copy Share Image
I read all of Rider Haggard's books. For me he had the romance of Africa with a little bit of mysticism. I'm… — Wilbur Smith Copy Share Image
As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great… — Natalia Ginzburg Copy Share Image
From about ninth grade on, I knew I was a writer at heart. I had fantasies of being a great novelist, but… — Kevin Maney Copy Share Image
In terms of style, I think the memoirist should have a novelist's skill and all the elements of a novelist's toolbox. When… — Danielle Trussoni Copy Share Image
It is true that it is usually for their books that novelists reserve their most considered and ordered thoughts, but the fact… — Justin Cartwright Copy Share Image
Dickens didn't have access to any other epistemologies other than those prevailing in Britain. But a novelist today cannot plausibly claim ignorance… — Pankaj Mishra Copy Share Image
“Sigmund Freud was a novelist with a scientific background. He just didn’t know he was a novelist. All those damn psychiatrists after… — John Irving Copy Share Image
Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a… — Freya Stark Copy Share Image
When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or… — Virginia Woolf Copy Share Image
“Let's not get so ecstatic we ignore the fiscal situation. As my agent so delicately pointed out, most novels--providing they get published--net… — Anonymous Copy Share Image
I was going to be a great woman novelist. Then the war came along and I think it's hard for young people… — Julia Child Copy Share Image
The more romance novelists that are out there, making romanticized ideas of vampirism for the kids, the more people want to see… — Corey Feldman Copy Share Image
A lot of novelists start late-Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
anything being perceived as being superior takes the noun. And everything that isn't, that's judged to be inferior, requires an adjective. So… — Gloria Steinem Copy Share Image
We sometimes forget that human invention can also be a subject of human invention: that might seem a modern notion, or a… — Andrew O'Hagan Copy Share Image
Novelist time is reptile time; novelists tend to be ruminant and brooding, nursers of ancient grievances, second-guessers, Tuesday afternoon quarterbacks, retrospectators, endlessly,… — Michael Chabon Copy Share Image
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us.… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
![“There are many ways of writing badly about painting... There is an 'appreciative' language of threadbare, not inaccurate, but overexposed and irritating words... the language of the schools which 'situates' works and artists in schools and movements... novelists and poets [that] see paintings as…” quote by A. S. Byatt](https://sms4smile.com/q/img-quotes/18f/a-s-byatt-2-7553_allegory_there-are-many-ways-of-writing-badly-abo_1872413.jpg)
