Novel Quotes · Page 53

the slight sense of degeneracy induced by reading novels before luncheon

— Elizabeth Bowen

History gives you insight of the same quality of truth as poetry or philosophy or a novel.

— Simon Schama

Bonsai won the Chilean Critics Award for best novel of the year in 2006and it's easy to understand why.

— Jonathan Messinger

I spent four of my five years at Stanford writing a novel I was unable to sell.

— Scott Turow

Like most little girls, I found the lure of grown-up accessories astonishing - lipstick, perfume, hats and gloves. When I write female…

— Sara Sheridan

We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as…

— John le Carre

As for 'story' I never yet did enjoy a novel or play in which someone didn't tell me afterward that there was…

— E. M. Forster

I think in some ways what Snowden is, is he's a mix of a cold war spy novel and post-9/11 spy novel.

— Alex Berenson

In a couple of Ahdaf Soueif's novels, she gets at the certain kind of English that's being spoken by Egyptians. It's a…

— Elliott Colla

I thought, "If I could bring these characters [Wonder Boys] to life and lead the audience to react the same way I…

— Curtis Hanson

I encourage all novelists to move to TV right now, that is the way to go. I was living in New York…

— Nick Antosca

I don't write constantly; it's two serials and a novel a year.

— Umera Ahmad

I started realising that the themes running through all of my novels were really haunting and obsessing me about my own life.

— Dani Shapiro

The Little Friend is a long book. It's also completely different from my first novel: different landscape, different characters, different use of…

— Donna Tartt

I think about material that could work in the novel or story as I'm writing. I see if I can get there…

— Lynne Tillman

The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the…

— Pat Conroy

Men and women make their own beauty or their own ugliness. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton speaks in one of his novels of…

— Alexander Smith

I'm not suggesting that ours [series] is unique in that, but they can begin to have that depth, that gravity, they can…

— Steven Knight

All novels must be autobiographical because I am the only material that I know. All of the characters are me. But at…

— John Banville

In Hollywood we acquire the finest novels in order to smell the leather bindings.

— Ernst Lubitsch

In a novel, if you're any good, you don't just have good people or bad people. You have complicated people. You have…

— Salman Rushdie

Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks…

— Thomas Hardy

Novels need readers of a certain kind, people who are patient and enjoy immersing themselves in another perspective for uninterrupted stretches of…

— Zia Haider Rahman

Novels are about men and women and children and dogs, not politics.

— John Cheever

The opening novel of the 'Bayou Trilogy' was the first one I finished.

— Daniel Woodrell

What the people want the most is to keep a balance between preventing further infections of the novel coronavirus and promoting economic…

— Yoshihide Suga

I don't think a novel's main donation, main gift, is the document. The document is there, but a novel goes beyond documentation.…

— Amos Oz

Conspiracy! Intrigue! A rapidly thickening plot! Add some bestiality and a lecherous priest and I'd say you have the beginnings of a…

— Marquis de Sade

My remembrance of the past is a novel I am constantly recomposing; and it would not be a historical novel, but sheer…

— George Santayana

My best experience as a writer was working with Michael Ondaatje. He let me dismantle his novel, reimagine it, and still had…

— Anthony

I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty…

— Scarlett Thomas

I don't begin a novel with a shopping list - the novel becomes my shopping list as I write it.

— William Gibson

The bane of my existence is the synopses that publishers request for a new novel or series. That's where I'm really producing…

— Michelle Gagnon

Of course, both [Oscar] Wilde & [Vladimir] Nabokov believe in many things, and these things emerge in their writing clearly - for…

— Joyce Carol Oates

The Weird Sisters is a chronicle of real women, because it tells the truths of sisters. Eleanor Brown has written a compelling…

— Min Jin Lee

Writers need restrictions. If somebody just says, "Hey, do you want to write a novel, or an article, or a movie, or…

— Mitchell Hurwitz

Although every novel is derived directly from another novel, there is really only one novel, the Quixote.

— David Berlinski

[ Adult novels] was the world of grownups. There was nothing about teenagers.

— Judy Blume

If you enjoy math and you write novels, it's very rare that you'll get a chance to put your math into a…

— Mark Haddon

Writing a novel is an incredibly free experience. One puts one's self in a narrative mode. You can go off in any…

— David Mamet