I was 29 when I wrote my first novel. But I was 45 when I quit for good. I was a 16-year overnight success. — Richard North Patterson Copy Share Image
There isn't, even now, a great tradition of novel-writing in Afghanistan. Most of the literature is in the form of poetry. — Khaled Hosseini Copy Share Image
If only a group of people were more important to me than the idea of a Novel, I might begin a novel. — Sylvia Plath Copy Share Image
I've read enough novels to know just how much time & energy it takes to fall in love and I just don't… — Alexandra Kollontai Copy Share Image
I spent four of my five years at Stanford writing a novel I was unable to sell. — Scott Turow Copy Share Image
Every novel worthy of the name is like another planet, whether large or small, which has its own laws just as it… — Francois Mauriac Copy Share Image
I could get a better education interviewing John Steinbeck than talking to an English professor about novels. — William Safire Copy Share Image
Every once in a while I feel the tremendous force of the novel. But it does not stay with me. — Zane Grey Copy Share Image
It's an unusual way to write a crime novel, to have these lingering, fairly large story points, but it's something I knew… — Tod Goldberg Copy Share Image
I found my first novel difficult. I don't want to make it sound like it's any more difficult than driving a cab… — Anthony Doerr Copy Share Image
One must be just a little crazy to write a great novel. One must be capable of allowing the darkest, most ancient… — John Gardner Copy Share Image
Being a nerd, which is to say going to far and caring too much about a subject, is the best way to… — Sarah Vowell Copy Share Image
Michael Koryta is an amazingly talented writer, and I rank The Prophet as one of the sharpest and superbly plotted crime novels… — Donald Ray Pollock Copy Share Image
The novel form is about the protagonist's struggle to transform his arbitrary, fragmented, given experience into a narrative as meaningful as his… — Elif Batuman Copy Share Image
“Part of what I love about novels and dogs is that they are so beautifully oblivious to economic concerns. We serve them,… — Ann Patchett Copy Share Image
The Dream Lover-what a bold, insightful, and enticing novel. And how vigorously Elizabeth Berg brings us the iconoclastic life of George Sand.… — Frances Mayes Copy Share Image
A novel is like a long relationship and a short story is a brief one that lingers - it lingers powerfully and… — Peter Orner Copy Share Image
In the end, of course, all novelists will be judged by their novels, but let's not forget that we will also need… — Pankaj Mishra Copy Share Image
“You’re different, and I know that’s probably the most cliché response ever given, but it’s the truth. When I look at you,… — Caroline George Copy Share Image
Put your hand on your heart to keep it from flying off to the lovely magical literary island Mary Ann Shaffer and… — Kris Radish Copy Share Image
And he absolutely had to find her at once to tell her that he adored her, but the large audience before him… — Vladimir Nabokov Copy Share Image
The movie, like the book before it, is an expertly built machine for the mass production of tears. Directed by Josh Boone… — A. O. Scott Copy Share Image
I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one...… — James Clavell Copy Share Image
Few literary depictions of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake match the intensity and visceral power of those in Flacco's gripping first novel.… — William Bernhardt Copy Share Image
She liked Victorian novels. They were the only kind of novel you could read while eating an apple. — Stella Gibbons Copy Share Image
I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. They are much more entertaining than half the novels… — W. Somerset Maugham Copy Share Image
Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
I like Jo Nesbo and Hakan Nesser. There are so many good books in the world. I don't want to spend time… — Maj Sjowall Copy Share Image
What's the challenge in writing a novel that few people will read? I'm more than happy writing what I do and have… — Nicholas Sparks Copy Share Image
There may well be writers who roll up their sleeves and say, 'I'm going to write a post-9/11 novel' but I wasn't… — Joseph O'Neill Copy Share Image
My springboard is always the script. Even if the script is taken from a novel, I often haven't read the novel... — John Hurt Copy Share Image
There is no other way of writing a novel than to begin at the beginning at to continue to the end. — C. S. Forester Copy Share Image
While the novel-writer aims at an eminently natural method of transcription, the author of the short story adopts a very artificial one — Henry Seidel Canby Copy Share Image
I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long. — Louise Brown Copy Share Image
I'm not reading currently because I'm getting revisions of a novel. If I read while I'm writing I will unconsciously plagiarize and… — David Duchovny Copy Share Image
College is an environment designed to encourage openness - the ability to think of things in novel ways and entertain unconventional beliefs. — Caterina Fake Copy Share Image
Sex annihilates identity, and the space given to sex in contemporary novels is an avowal of the absence of character. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
Novel-writing is a settling, lovely space. I call it self-indulgent - I feel mildly guilty about it. — Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor Copy Share Image
I was in love with a whirlwind, so when the girl threw me over, I went home and finished my novel. — F. Scott Fitzgerald Copy Share Image
“In my end lies my beginning" Who said that? Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1542-1587).” — Danny Saunders Copy Share Image
