Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. — John Steinbeck Copy Share Image
When I began to read as an adult, I read almost exclusively novelists of a generation back. I did the Russians, then… — Hilary Mantel Copy Share Image
My political position springs from my being a novelist. In so far as I am concerned, politics and the novel are an… — Ghassan Kanafani Copy Share Image
The materials of the novelist must be real; they must be gathered from the field of humanity by his actual observation. — Goldwin Smith Copy Share Image
Comedians and jazz musicians have been more comforting and enlightening to me than preachers or politicians or philosophers or poets or painters… — Kurt Vonnegut Copy Share Image
The passion for fact in a raw state is a peculiarity of the novelist. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
“Sigmund Freud was a novelist with a scientific background. He just didn’t know he was a novelist. All those damn psychiatrists after… — John Irving Copy Share Image
You have chosen to risk your lives for the defense of this country. I will not insult you by saying that you… — Ayn Rand Copy Share Image
Society is the stage on which manners are shown; novels are the literature. Novels are the journal or record of manners; and… — Ralph Waldo Emerson Copy Share Image
The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
The future is unwritten. there are best case scenarios. There are worst-case scenarios. both of them are great fun to write about… — Bruce Sterling Copy Share Image
I think novelists are in the education business, really, but they're not teaching you times tables, they are teaching you responsiveness and… — Martin Amis Copy Share Image
Novelists are no more moral or certain than anybody else; we are ideologically adrift, and if we are any good then our… — Andrew O'Hagan Copy Share Image
All kinds of mysterious phenomena exist in this world, but answers to most of them have come with advances in scientific knowledge.… — Mo Yan Copy Share Image
When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his… — C. S. Lewis Copy Share Image
The Treatise of the Three Impostors is a book that enjoyed centuries of notorious nonexistence until (as Voltaire would say) it became… — Joscelyn Godwin Copy Share Image
Neanderthal man listened to stories, if one may judge by the shape of his skull. The primitive audience was an audience of… — E. M. Forster Copy Share Image
All life is a purposeful struggle, and your only choice is the choice of a goal. — Ayn Rand Copy Share Image
I couldn't have been a novelist without being a mother. It gives you a unique witness point of the growth of a… — Carol Shields Copy Share Image
For a novelist, it's kind of an onerous burden to represent an entire culture. — Khaled Hosseini Copy Share Image
A lot of novelists start late-Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But… — James M. Cain Copy Share Image
As a novelist, there are three phone calls you never expect to receive in your lifetime because if you waited for them… — Chris Bohjalian Copy Share Image
