I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn't until I was… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
There are two kinds of typical days. There's the typical day when I'm writing a novel, and there's the typical day when… — Paul Auster Copy Share Image
“There’s no better way to get to know a city than to walk its streets. A place will reveal its soul through… — Henry Mosquera Copy Share Image
I have a slightly contrarian streak as a writer, and one of the things I was interested in was how distilled could… — Jenny Offill Copy Share Image
I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
An important factor to note is that it's rare for anyone to sell a first novel written before they turned 30-35; long-format… — Charles Stross Copy Share Image
I sort of hate the novel when it doesn't push, restlessly, against the tradition and the traditional. — Rick Moody 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
You can't write a novel all at once, any more than you can swallow a whale in one gulp. You do have… — Orson Scott Card Copy Share Image
I have always held to the theory that too much chalk may be just as bad for a novel as for a… — Heywood Broun Copy Share Image
The various roles we incorporate into the criminal justice system as well as the ways in which we construe such roles, lend… — John Kleinig Copy Share Image
I started my first novel when I was 10, and have produced thousands of pages of juvenilia since. — Ned Beauman Copy Share Image
People have quite a simple idea about 'Anna Karenina.' They feel that the novel is entirely about a young married woman who… — Tom Stoppard Copy Share Image
Just keep writing, and try to finish that novel. Remember, all authors started exactly where you are right now; the only difference… — Julie Kagawa Copy Share Image
Writing novels reminds me of being an awkward 15-year-old typing on a Commodore 64 in his bedroom, trying to be the next… — Duane Swierczynski Copy Share Image
However appalling to consider, however tedious to enact, every novel requires furniture, whether it is to be named or unnamed, for the… — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
I sailed a bit as a child, but it wasn't until I was around 40, when I was halfway through Patrick O'Brian's… — Billy Campbell Copy Share Image
“Her voice was small and distant, like she’d already left the room.” — Steven Ramirez Copy Share Image
I think, in a written novel, the way in which you play with the readers' emotion or the way in which you… — Salman Rushdie Copy Share Image
Certainly I'm still mining my experiences as a journalist. I think it's no coincidence that all three of my novels basically are… — Geraldine Brooks Copy Share Image
“Limp finally spoke. “Do you think you could kill a person and not get all crazy about it?” — Cole Alpaugh Copy Share Image
The financial markets tend to be just a backdrop for a novel, for a heist or something that isn't necessarily integral to… — Robert Harris Copy Share Image
I'm snobby about books that aren't crime fiction: if I start reading a literary novel and there's no mystery emerging in the… — Sophie Hannah Copy Share Image
There is no denying that we are suffering from a collective neurosis and the novel which does not face this is not… — Anais Nin Copy Share Image
Respect can be as elusive as the unicorn. I know something of this because I write books that are set in the… — Sharon Kay Penman Copy Share Image
I was about 12 or 13 years old. I picked up the Bible and read it from cover to cover one weekend… — Madalyn Murray O'Hair Copy Share Image
The trouble with calling a book a novel, well, it's not like I'm writing the same book all the time, but there… — Aleksandar Hemon Copy Share Image
It seems to me that the basic plot of all historical novels is a romance swept aside by history. — Ned Beauman Copy Share Image
You know, not every good book needs to be a movie, or a television series, or a video game. There's great work… — Carlos Ruiz Zafon Copy Share Image
I enjoy writing plays most. I haven't written a radio play in a while and I don't write short stories anymore because… — Sefi Atta Copy Share Image
If you read the novel, you have expectations. And, if you've seen something first, it's just hard to do. — Chloe Grace Moretz Copy Share Image
If you want meaning, you read poetry or a novel or something, you don't read song lyrics. You're supposed to listen to… — Roddy Woomble Copy Share Image
I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply… — Margaret Atwood Copy Share Image
The apocalypse is coming, that's the one thing I like about George Bush, I really think he can get us into the… — Patton Oswalt Copy Share Image
Talk about burning books and burning bushes, I think that reading an effective novel can be like being immersed in fire and… — Suhayl Saadi Copy Share Image
What greatly annoys me is sometimes you see the short story being described as a training ground for the novel. Kind of… — Kevin Barry Copy Share Image
