A novelist is an elephant, but an elephant who must pretend to forget. — Mary McCarthy Copy Share Image
I’ve always thought a novelist only has one character and that is himself or herself. — John Gregory Dunne Copy Share Image
“The great novelists are philosophical novelists--that is, the contrary of thesis-writers.” — Albert Camus Copy Share Image
“Novelists and police-inspectors do not always see eye to eye as regards publicity.” — Dorothy L. Sayers Copy Share Image
The contemporary American novelist benefits in a way from being ignored. It makes you angrier and makes you want to go into… — Colum McCann Copy Share Image
Most novelists I know went through a period of intense self-examination and self-loathing after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.… — Jay McInerney Copy Share Image
When you force a man to act against his own choice and judgment, it's his thinking that you want him to suspend. — Ayn Rand Copy Share Image
I always say that if you're a novelist, the challenge is not writing what you think ought to happen, but trying in… — Neil Gaiman Copy Share Image
Man is not himself only...He is all that he sees; all that flows to him from a thousand sources...He is the land,… — Mary Hunter Austin Copy Share Image
“...he was after all, a novelist...and a novelist was simply a fellow who got paid to tell lies. The bigger the lies,… — Stephen King Copy Share Image
The novelist's ambition is not to do something better than his predecessors but to see what they did not see, say what… — Milan Kundera Copy Share Image
I write because it gives me the greatest possible artistic pleasure to write. If my work pleases the few I am gratified.… — Oscar Wilde Copy Share Image
When I was 30 or so - by that time I had become an assistant D.A. - I decided I would try… — William Landay Copy Share Image
TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect ("Glossina morsitans") whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia,… — Ambrose Bierce Copy Share Image
It is the function of the novelist to reveal the hidden life at its source: to tell us more about Queen Victoria… — E. M. Forster Copy Share Image
In general, of course, a stranger who tries to get you into an automobile is anything but noble, and in general a… — Daniel Handler Copy Share Image
I went to an international school in Holland, and I didn't have any memories of growing up in the United States or… — Joseph O'Neill Copy Share Image
Do we value privacy in any real way? Thinking about blogs, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace... all these suggest we value exposure rather more.… — Guy Gavriel Kay Copy Share Image
Novelists are perhaps the last people in the world to be entrusted with opinions. The nature of a novel is that it… — Anthony Burgess Copy Share Image
I think it's really boring, from the point of view of the novelist, to write about yourself. Tedious. But that's very hard… — Peter Carey Copy Share Image
What a joy it is to read a book that shocks one into remembering just how high one's literary standards should be.…… — Noah Richler Copy Share Image
Usually when I drank too much, I could guess why I did so, the objective being to murder a state of consciousness… — Lewis H. Lapham Copy Share Image
“At college, I was told there were four great women novelists in the 19th century – Jane Austen, George Eliot, Charlotte and… — Jeanette Winterson Copy Share Image
“You may think novelists always have fixed plans to which they work, so that the future predicted by Chapter One is always… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
I wouldn't care to speculate about what it is in Westlake's psyche that makes him so good at writing about Parker, much… — Terry Teachout Copy Share Image
"Between a high, solid wall and an egg that breaks against it, I will always stand on the side of the egg."… — Haruki Murakami Copy Share Image
So long as a novelist works selfishly for the pleasure of creating character and situation corresponding to his own illusions, ideals and… — Willa Cather Copy Share Image
I feel like the reason I ended up becoming a playwright is because I never choose the right word. As a kid,… — Annie Baker Copy Share Image
Henry James claim that if you want to be a novelist you should be somebody on whom nothing is lost. — Ben Lerner Copy Share Image
Drawing Dead is a brilliant noir from one of Australia's most exciting new novelists. — Adrian McKinty Copy Share Image
The great thing about being a novelist is that you organize your own day. — Sophie Kinsella Copy Share Image
Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion. — Arnold Bennett Copy Share Image
And then, as if written by the hand of a bad novelist, an incredible thing happened. — Jonathan Stroud Copy Share Image
The function of the novelist... is to comment upon life as he sees it. — Frank Norris Copy Share Image
