Novel Quotes

2432 Novel quotes by 1347 unique authors

Actually, I enjoy the process of writing a big long novel. — Donna Tartt
Pace is crucial. Fine writing isn't enough. Writing students can be great at producing a single page of well-crafted prose; what they sometimes lack is… — Rose Tremain
The process of rewriting is enjoyable, because you're not in that existential panic when you don't have a novel at all. — Rose Tremain
For years and years I thought that stories were just practice, till I got time to write a novel, — Alice Munro
I would really hope this would make people see the short story as an important art, not just something you played around with until you… — Alice Munro
One of the things that happens in novels it's almost like a continual debate with yourself. That's why you're writing the book. It's why you… — Michael Ondaatje
You're getting everyone's point of view at the same time, which for me, is the perfect state for a novel: a cubist state, the cubist… — Michael Ondaatje
I see the poem or the novel ending with an open door. — Michael Ondaatje
Expecting a novel to bear the weight of our whole disturbed society—to help solve our contemporary problems—seems to me a peculiarly American delusion. To write… — Jonathan Franzen
To me, the point of a novel is to take you to a still place. You can multitask with a lot of things, but you… — Jonathan Franzen
It seems to me that the novel is very much alive as a form. Without any question, every epoch has its own forms, and the… — Ilya Ehrenburg
Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are… — Frank Norris
It is apparent at first glance that in The Double there is more creative talent and depth of thought than in Poor Folk. But meanwhile… — Vissarion Belinsky
You do not conceive a novel as easily as you conceive a child, nor even half as easily as you create nonfiction work. A journalist… — Zelda Popkin
The Humbling is not vintage Roth, despite its compelling premise. The bizarre series of episodes -- mostly sexual encounters with women -- which make up… — Philip Hensher
Ivan and Misha is the great American Russian Novel told as Chekhov would tell it, in stories of delicacy, humanity, and insight. From Kiev to… — Unknown Author
I believe in the soul ... the small of a woman's back, the hanging curveball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag… — Kevin Costner
Literature is love. I think it went like this: drawings in the cave, sounds in the cave, songs in the cave, songs about us. Later,… — Eileen Myles
I was captivated by Sherrie Flick's meticulous and intelligent study of Margaret and Vivette, and the men they share. Reconsidering Happiness is a courageously intimate… — Jim Crace
I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are… — Anne Bronte
I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through… — Octavia Butler
People who want to write either do it or they don't. At last I began to say that my most important talent - or habit… — Octavia Butler
No one is as real to me as people in the novel. It grows like a living thing. When I realize they do not exist… — Mavis Gallant
There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories. I am doing it now, because I many never have another occasion. Stories… — Mavis Gallant
I believe that people should write biographies only about people they love, or understand, or both. Novels, on the other hand, are often better if… — Penelope Fitzgerald

Who Wrote These Novel Quotes

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