There are many reasons why novelists write, but they all have one thing in common - a need to create an alternative… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
“A word (...) is never the destination, merely a signpost in its general direction; and whatever (...) body that destination finally acquires… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
Like all mystics (and many novelists, not least the present one) he is baffled, a child, before the real now; far happier… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
The diary will really try and tell people who you are and what you were. The alternative is writing nothing, or creating… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
“Write, if you must, because you feel like writing, never because you feel you ought to write.” — John Fowles Copy Share Image
“She was trying to write a novel, it was so slow, you had to destroy so much and start again; so hard… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
All novelists should live in two different worlds: a real one and an unreal one. — John Fowles Copy Share Image
I do not plan my fiction any more than I normally plan woodland walks; I follow the path that seems most promising at any… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
“The sky is absolutely empty. Beautifully pure and empty. As if the architects and builders would live in all the houses they built! Or… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
“The evolution of human mentality has put us all in vitro now, behind the glass wall of our own ingenuity.” — John Fowles Copy Share Image
Most marriages recognize this paradox: Passion destroys passion; we want what puts an end to wanting what we want. — John Fowles Copy Share Image
That is the great distinction between the sexes. Men see objects, women see the relationships between objects. — John Fowles Copy Share Image
The craving to risk death is our last great perversion. We come from night, we go into night. Why live in night? — John Fowles Copy Share Image
There is only one good definition of God: the freedom that allows other freedoms to exist. — John Fowles Copy Share Image
“Long afterwards I realized why some men, racing drivers and their like, become addicted to speed. There are those of us who never see… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
But however good you get at translating personality into line or paint it's no go if your personality isn't worth translating. — John Fowles Copy Share Image
“Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society. It” — John Fowles Copy Share Image
Do you know that every great thing in the history of art and every beautiful thing in life is actually what you call nasty… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
“Yet this distance, all those abysses unbridged and then unbridgeable by radio, television, cheap travel and the rest, was not wholly bad. People knew… — John Fowles Copy Share Image
