There isn't, unfortunately, any way of discovering whether you can write a publishable novel except by writing it. — John Braine Copy Share Image
My first novel was a challenge to myself. No one had an inkling that I was working on it. — Vikas Swarup Copy Share Image
Novels attempt to render human experience; that's really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character. — Sue Monk Kidd Copy Share Image
In my third novel there is an actual black hole that swallows everything you love. — Jonathan Lethem Copy Share Image
Television and film are such streamlined story mediums. You can't really meander about, whereas a novel is an interior experience. — Steven Bochco Copy Share Image
I began my first novel when I was 15. It went through three drafts, of around 40,000 words each. If I find… — Charles Stross Copy Share Image
“Looking back on my life, I sigh. The caprice of youth goes with the wind, I’ve no regrets.” — Roman Payne Copy Share Image
“To live is to walk beside Death but never join hands. ~ Captain Buck "Slackeye" Roberts” — Kai McCarthy Copy Share Image
I like horror, but I tend to like it as seasoning. I'd get very bored if I was told I had to… — Neil Gaiman Copy Share Image
Before I was reading science fiction, I read Hemingway. Farewell to Arms was my first adult novel that said not everything ends… — Robert Reed Copy Share Image
The experience of reading a novel and watching a television show are quite different. You can't let your audience get ahead of… — Michelle Fairley Copy Share Image
With any novel that you begin, you can't foresee how difficult or easy it's going to be, and you can't really prepare… — Jane Smiley Copy Share Image
Personally, one of the most helpful things I learned was three-act structure. For my first four or so novels, I built the… — Marcus Sakey Copy Share Image
The responsibility for change...lies within us. We must begin with ourselves, teaching ourselves not to close our minds prematurely to the novel,… — Alvin Toffler Copy Share Image
In my office in Florida I have, I think, 30 manuscript piles around the room. Some are screenplays or comic books or… — James Patterson Copy Share Image
I've read about eight or ten of the original novels, and one of them is where Maigret's in bed for the entire… — Rowan Atkinson Copy Share Image
“Socrates is flying. No, he is soaring. The wings behind him beat in a calming rhythm while the cool air rushes past.… — Ken Goldman Copy Share Image
When I began to write novels, I wanted to keep that element of interaction with the reader that exists in poetry, not… — Michael Ondaatje Copy Share Image
“He shook his head and thought about it for a second. “Maybe I'm not straight? Can I still be straight when I'm… — Elaine White Copy Share Image
Well, this is a story about books." About books?" About accursed books, about a man who wrote them, about a character who… — Carlos Ruiz Zafon Copy Share Image
Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
Like no other writer in contemporary American literature, Brock Clarke has a way of looking at us, I mean looking straight at… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
The truth is that every intelligent man, as you know, dreams of being a gangster and of ruling over society by force… — Albert Camus Copy Share Image
If writing novels is like planting a forest, then writing short stories is more like planting a garden. The two processes complement… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
“Writing is the only way to run away from home, without ever leaving.” — Shannon L. Alder Copy Share Image
If you haven't written a novel by the time you're forty you never will! — Richard Yates Copy Share Image
A fictionalised memoir of my father would be a failure as a novel. — Richard Flanagan Copy Share Image
