Novel Quotes · Page 53

I don't know if memoirs can produce literary work of the first order. But I do know that novels are doing it…

— Vivian Gornick

Novels definitely come more naturally to me. When I write short stories, it's always a fight against it expanding.

— Maggie Shipstead

Maggie Shipstead takes hold of the reader and doesn't let go. Astonish Me is a haunting, powerful novel.

— Dani Shapiro

My producing partner and I were shown a novel we really liked. It was called 'My Abandonment' by Peter Rock, and we…

— Debra Granik

“Life is full of beautiful moments. Live your life to the fullest. And do what you love.”

— Santonu Kumar Dhar

One of the things that novels have tended not to concentrate on over the centuries is the fact that people read books.

— Jonathan Lethem

“...ever since she had read the girl's novel, a piece of artistry that struck her as wish-fulfilment at its most blatant...”

— Margaret Westhaven

“Whatever is scaring you, bring it into the light. It's strength will fade”

— Kerry Reichs

“In fact, while we read a novel, we are insane – bonkers. We believe in the existence of people who aren’t there,…

— Ursula K. Le Guin

I will say that there is an inordinate amount of medicine in my novels, especially the first one. There are a lot…

— Khaled Hosseini

But are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid? [Referring to Gothic novels, fashionable in England at the beginning…

— Jane Austen

When I'm working on a serious and solid book ... I read about a detective novel a day. It's the best legal…

— Mary Lee Settle

The best novel I wrote was one called 'Crusoe's Daughter,' which never won any prizes. But I was getting somewhere in that.…

— Jane Gardam

I don't really read what people write about me. Someone gives my novel one star; are they a troll? Are they someone…

— Anna Quindlen

I thought that I would have a huge literary novel coming out when I was, like, 29. I quit my banking job,…

— Philipp Meyer

“The novel has been the subject of several scholarly essays and has become a staple of college classes in contemporary fiction (and…

— David Markson

I've written one book-length piece of journalism. The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed Bishop Gerardi? That book had an impact. Eight…

— Francisco Goldman

Something we do know is that review coverage does go to male authors more than women authors. That's a fact. I think…

— Emma Donoghue

Not all coincidence has to be loaded with meaning. Sometimes, things simply recur because that's how it is in life, that's how…

— Teju Cole

You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers 'puzzles.' I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know…

— Harlan Coben

Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a novel that I have read over and over and over again. Tess is a…

— Laetitia Casta

At the risk, then, of being shunned by some of my gloomier peers, I venture to tell you that writers work like…

— Michael Cunningham

Irving Wallace wrote a bestselling novel, The Man, in the 1960s about a black man becoming president of the United States. We…

— Wayne Dyer

Something that you should take particular notice of is the fact that the best scripts have very few explanatory passages. Adding explanation…

— Akira Kurosawa

[On Dashiell Hammett:] ... he is so hard-boiled you could roll him on the White House lawn.

— Dorothy Parker

specialize in small cast/single reader long fiction so I only compete against other podcasts of novels in that form.

— Nathan Lowell

A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a…

— Lorrie Moore

How are we to write The Russian novel in America As long as life goes so unterribly?

— Robert Frost

Novel writing should never be confused with journalism. Unfortunately, in the case of Primary Colors, a fair number of journalists confused.

— Joe Klein

History is a novel which did take place; a novel is history that could take place.

— Jules de Goncourt

“We are born. We die. Somewhere in between we live. And how we live is up to us. That’s it.”

— Steven Ramirez

The subject of a novel is not the plot. Who remembers what happened to Lucien de Rebempre in the end?

— Graham Greene

Believe me, when I say; There are no two powers That command the soul. One is God The other is the tide.…

— Clive Barker

“The novel is a medium of profoundly serious investigation into the human case.”

— Ford Madox Ford

Before my first novel, I was dating a woman who later went to prison for bashing a guy with a hammer.

— Gary Shteyngart

The main thing about the novel that is totally fascinating: It's not possessed by the writer; it's possessed by the reader.

— Jane Smiley

I always begin [a novel] with outlines, but they change and so do my endings and beginnings.

— Sefi Atta

Life is like a novel. Many chapters read and forgotten. But there is one I wont forget. Its the chapter I met…

— Babloo

I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen.

— Mary Karr

I'd probably still be a financial journalist now if it weren't for writing novels. Mmm. Fun! I'm much happier writing novels!

— Sophie Kinsella