When I was in college I started writing prose, because a very smart professor asked me what I like to read and… — Melissa Febos Copy Share Image
A writer is someone who spends years patiently trying to discover the second being inside him, and the world that makes him… — Orhan Pamuk Copy Share Image
If you're a playwright, unless you're really lacking in get-up-and-go, you can always get your play up somewhere. You can't necessarily make… — Tony Kushner Copy Share Image
Making reality real is art's responsibility. It is a practical assignment, then, a self-assignment: to achieve, by a cultivated sensitivity for observing… — Eudora Welty Copy Share Image
He had learned from experience that what he succeeded in putting down on paper was only ever a pale reflection of what… — Félix J. Palma Copy Share Image
Magical, yes, but THE SNOW CHILD is also satisfyingly realistic in its depiction of 1920s homestead-era Alaska and the people who settled… — Andromeda Romano-Lax Copy Share Image
John Barth, I think, was really a writer of my own age and somewhat of my own temperament, although his books are… — John Updike Copy Share Image
I don't start a novel until I have lived with the story for awhile to the point of actually writing an outline… — John Grisham Copy Share Image
I'm a little skeptical of so-called narco fiction, I have to say, though some writers I admire may have written some narco… — Francisco Goldman Copy Share Image
“It happens that in our phase of civility, the novel is the central form of literary art. It lends itself to explanations… — Frank Kermode Copy Share Image
Modern novels have become part of the do-it-yourself business, and they come in a very small number of standard kits. (...) In… — David Pryce-Jones Copy Share Image
I'd like to emphasize that when a reader finishes a great novel, he will immediately begin looking for another. If someone loves… — David Farland Copy Share Image
I always think about the books I'm doing in pretty much the same way. I'm simply trying to write that particular novel… — Peter Straub Copy Share Image
You will stay up all night reading this brilliant and devastating novel the way you might have with a new best friend… — Julie Orringer Copy Share Image
I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be… — Flannery O'Connor Copy Share Image
When I started writing short stories, I thought I was writing a novel. I had like 60 or 70 pages. And what… — Shane Carruth Copy Share Image
I've often said that there's no such thing as writer's block; the problem is idea block. When I find myself frozen-whether I'm… — Jeffery Deaver Copy Share Image
If you had told me twenty years ago that I would write a novel set in Russia, much less two, I simply… — Debra Dean Copy Share Image
The truth is, everything we know about America, everything Americans come to know about being American, isn't from the news. I live… — Chris Abani Copy Share Image
A problem with my novels is that they, from the start, have been infantile and incredibly childish. There are childishness, stupidity, lack… — Karl Ove Knausgard Copy Share Image
Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author… — Tom Clancy Copy Share Image
Try to find the real tense of the report you are reading: Was it done, is it being done, or is something… — Amrom Harry Katz Copy Share Image
Way back in 1989, I got lucky with my first published story when it was selected for the Journey Prize anthology. Then… — David Bergen Copy Share Image
The words you can't find, you borrow. We read to know we're not alone. We read because we are alone. We read… — Gabrielle Zevin Copy Share Image
Certainly the determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and novel impulse struggling… — George Eliot Copy Share Image
I am the suburb of a non-existent town, the prolix commentary on a book never written. I am nobody, nobody. I am… — Fernando Pessoa Copy Share Image
Jeremy Popkin's collection of first-person narratives of the Haitian Revolution is an extremely valuable work, accessible, sound and intelligent. I only wish… — Madison Smartt Bell Copy Share Image
Writing a novel was like I had some Play-Doh to work with and could just keep working with it - doing a… — Miranda July Copy Share Image
The funniest novel you've never read. . . . Afternoon Men is a revelation to sophisticated readers of every stripe, but especially… — Blake Bailey Copy Share Image
The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks.… — Cheryl Strayed Copy Share Image
“Michelle, since the first day I met you I knew you were the one for me. I knew that I would make… — Blaque Diamond Copy Share Image
Despite being from Ireland, I've always avoided writing about it, for two reasons. For a very small country, Ireland has produced an… — Maggie O'Farrell Copy Share Image
I don't feel I write fast. I write in longhand and do so much revision. On the page, it's so old-fashioned. I… — Joyce Carol Oates Copy Share Image
I know California isn't a real destination. You can't get there from New Jersey, not simply by following a line drawn on… — Kate Braverman Copy Share Image
I often hear people say that they read to escape reality, but I believe that what they’re really doing is reading to… — Terry Goodkind Copy Share Image
I'd studied 16th century science and magic. I thought it was strange that people were interested in the same kinds of things… — Deborah Harkness Copy Share Image
I pretty much drink a cup of coffee, write in my journal for a while, and then sit at a computer in… — Jess Walter Copy Share Image
In Pakistan, many of the young people read novels because in the novels, not just my novels but the novels of many… — Mohsin Hamid Copy Share Image
Get away from my ex-girlfriend, you moany little whinge-bag.' Caelen took a deep breath, like he was in pain, and stood up.… — Derek Landy Copy Share Image
“It’s not that we have to leave this life one day, it's how many things we have to leave all at once:… — Roman Payne Copy Share Image
