Novel Quotes

2432 Novel quotes by 1347 unique authors

Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan… — Barbara Kingsolver
This thought-provoking novel portrays the absurdity of our overbearing government bureaucracy with a story that is entertaining and fast-paced. The Taxman Cometh will become part… — Grover Norquist
These motivational tapes have really inspired me! I'm going to make a million dollars, buy my own company and retire early. Then, I'm going to… — Randy Glasbergen
A novel is like a bow, and the violin that produces the sound is the reader's soul. — Stendhal
There's an expectation these days that novels - like any other consumer product - should be made on a production line, with one dropping from… — Donna Tartt
The novel does not seek to establish a privileged language but it insists upon the freedom to portray and analyze the struggle between the different… — Salman Rushdie
After all, the world is not a stage-not to me: nor a theatre: nor a show-house of any sort. And art, especially novels, are not… — D. H. Lawrence
It's hard being a hostage in somebody else's mouth - or a character in somebody else's novel. — David Antin
No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news,… — Ishmael Reed
Vladimir Nabokov was a writer who cared nothing for music and whose favorite sport was the pursuit, capture, and murder of butterflies. This explains many… — Edward Abbey
The ideal kitchen-sink novel: Throw in everything but the kitchen sink. Then add the kitchen sink. — Edward Abbey
My notion of a great novel is something like a five-hundred-page shaggy-dog story, with only the punch line omitted. — Edward Abbey
You could say I'd rewritten the same novel three times and I thought I had to move on. The success of the book, and then… — Kazuo Ishiguro
I've had some tremendous adventures, good and bad. It's part of the novel, and a novel isn't interesting if it doesn't have some good and… — Lynn Johnston
I've always felt that life is a novel, and part of it is written for you, and part of it is written by you. It's… — Lynn Johnston
In course of time my first novel appeared. It was a love story. — George Barr McCutcheon
My medium is prose, not the novel. — David Shields
Now, my novel begins. No, now I begin my novel—and yet I cannot decide whether to call myself I or she. — Elizabeth Hardwick
Twentieth-century Russian literature has produced nothing special except perhaps one novel and two stories by Andrei Platonov, who ended his days sweeping streets. — Joseph Brodsky
And the nice thing about writing a novel is you take your time, you sit with the character sometimes nine years, you look very deeply… — Sandra Cisneros
A good novel is worth more then the best scientific study. — Saul Bellow
Listen closely. There’s a remote possibility that you might learn something: First, I don’t give a damn if my work is commercial or not…I’m the… — John Fante
I was very influenced by The Magic Mountain. It's a book that had a huge impact on me. I loved that as a shape for… — Ann Patchett
You need a theme in a picture book just as much or maybe even more than you need it in a novel. — Eve Bunting
Let's put it this way: if you are a novelist, I think you start out with a 20 word idea, and you work at it… — Eric Carle

Who Wrote These Novel Quotes

1,347 authors contributed a total of 2,432 Novel Quotes, led by these top contributors: