“Do not start me on The Da Vinci Code ... a novel so bad that it gives bad novels a bad name."… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
Novel-writing is the only place where someone who would have liked to do anything can still do that vicariously, — Anonymous Copy Share Image
The story has to flow from an unstructured, felt place, but then I have to bring my analytical brain to bear on… — Marisa Silver Copy Share Image
A novel is not moral in the usual sense of the word. It can be called moral when it shakes us out… — Azar Nafisi Copy Share Image
“To find just the right book at the moment when the soul is hungry for it is a miracle, and not a… — Jane Steger Copy Share Image
“Write down important formulas, facts, definitions, and/or keywords in the margin first so you won't worry about” — Jawanza Kunjufu Copy Share Image
“Two of life’s greatest pleasures, by my reckoning, are camping and reading—most gloriously, both at once.” — Michael Finkel Copy Share Image
I do really enjoy Jay McInerney's wine writing. He's a good writer. He brings his fiction-writing skillset. He's not afraid to put… — Mike D Copy Share Image
“My favorite thing in the world to do is read a book. I read Heidi, which I love, then I read another… — Mindy Warshaw Skolsky Copy Share Image
Our day-to-day lives are pretty chaotic. So in terms of the writing part, you have to get pretty disciplined about finding quiet… — Sarah Kay Copy Share Image
“Each page in a book will discover other pages and other books. Thus books will seep out of their bindings and weave… — Kevin Kelly Copy Share Image
“And yet, for a writer of fiction, part of the heart remains that of a stranger, for what we are trying to… — Margaret Laurence Copy Share Image
To write fiction is to think that you're doing it wrong - that your work habits are inhibiting you; that you've chosen… — Ben Dolnick Copy Share Image
First-book novelists and storywriters haven't yet failed and so it's easier to publish them - you can gamble on a success. Whereas… — Frederick Busch Copy Share Image
My theory is that Kurt had a lot of residual pain from his childhood. And when you pile that on top of… — Charles J. Shields Copy Share Image
In TheColorful Apocalypse, Greg Bottoms explores the frontier between inspiration and psychosis with the expressive power, the passionate fervor, and the faithfully… — Madison Smartt Bell Copy Share Image
It's only adults who read the top layers most of the time. I think children read the internal meanings of everything. — Maurice Sendak Copy Share Image
“A good book is a good friend. He will talk to you if you want him to talk, but will shut up… — Lyman Abbott Copy Share Image
When writing becomes too dominant, it gets leached of its own power. We spend more and more time writing and we have… — Julia Cameron Copy Share Image
I do a lot of revising on paper. Sometimes I think I should just write longhand - what I type reads very… — Sara Shepard Copy Share Image
“Write, even if you have a twinge, a doubt, a fear, a block, a noisy neighbor, a sick cat, thirteen unpublished stories,… — Eric Maisel Copy Share Image
To make a book is as much a trade as to make a clock; something more than intelligence is required to become… — Jean de la Bruyere Copy Share Image
Seventy percent of a first draft is garbage and 30 percent is gold, but you have to write 100 percent to get that 30. — Laurell K. Hamilton Copy Share Image
I'm trying to be somebody on whom the experience is lost by supplanting it with its telling. I definitely do that in… — Ben Lerner Copy Share Image
Since the age of four, I've been exploring what I can do with the written word: everything from championing literacy and youth… — Adora Svitak Copy Share Image
Mostly it's lies, writing novels. You set out to tell an untrue story and you try to make it believable, even to… — Anne Tyler Copy Share Image
Writing a book is like running a marathon. You need to be fit to do it, mentally and, as far as possible,… — Catherine Mayer Copy Share Image
Writing is a process of discovering. I could never outline a narrative; that just sounds boring. There's no joy of discovery in… — Bob Shacochis Copy Share Image
Often something comes in from which you can see that the person is good, the book may not be perfect as it… — James Laughlin Copy Share Image
It is the creator of fiction's point of view; it is the character who interests him. Sometimes he wants to convince the… — Raymond Queneau Copy Share Image
One likes to think one grows as a writer as one ages, else all you get is an old young writer. Beyond… — Raymond E. Feist Copy Share Image
To make it interesting and worth doing, writing a novel has to be a leap into the unknown. I have to be… — Charles Palliser Copy Share Image
Most writers live in self-imposed exile, even when they don't leave their country. They prefer the undiscovered country inside their own heads. — Anthony McCarten Copy Share Image
“I think that the best fiction is directly rooted in an ability to identify and tell the psychological truth about people.” — Alistair Cross Copy Share Image
What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
Any writer knows he has to pay for his compliments. As soon as he has said, Why, thank you, that's very generous… — Mary Jane Ward Copy Share Image
All my life, I will continue obstinately to write about love, solitude and passion among the kind of people I know. The… — Francoise Sagan Copy Share Image
In the shop we buy and sell them, but in truth books have no owner. Every book you see here has been… — Carlos Ruiz Zafon Copy Share Image
“Used to all kinds of society, she watched people as one reads the pages of a novel, with a certain disinterested amusement.” — D.H. Lawrence Copy Share Image
And life is a good thing for a writer. It's where we get our raw material, for a start. We quite like… — Neil Gaiman Copy Share Image
