Novel Quotes

2432 Novel quotes by 1347 unique authors

I have a theory of my own about what the art of the novel is, and how it came into being....It happens because the storyteller's… — Murasaki Shikibu
In a novel, the author gives the leading character intelligence and distinction. Fate goes to less trouble: mediocrities play a part in great events simply… — Charles Maurice de Talleyrand
I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether;… — P.G. Wodehouse
It is my contention that a really great novel is made with a knife and not a pen. A novelist must have the intestinal fortitude… — Frank Yerby
Yes, it has made me happier. Finishing them has made me happier. Before I wrote the Potter books, I'd never finished a novel. I came… — Joanne Kathleen Rowling
Beware of clichés. Not just the clichés that Martin Amis is at war with. There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are… — Geoff Dyer
Writing a novel proved to be the hardest, most self-analyzing task I had ever attempted, far worse than an autobiography: and its rewards were greater… — Dick Francis
I started writing novels while an undergraduate student, in an attempt to make sense of the city of Edinburgh, using a detective as my protagonist.… — Ian Rankin
Every novel is an equal collaboration between the writer and the reader and it is the only place in the world where two strangers can… — Paul Auster
Every novel is an attempt to capture time, to weave something solid out of air. The author knows it is an impossible task - that… — Arthur David Beaty
Dialogue must appear realistic without being so. Actual realism-the lifting, as it were, of passages from a stenographer's take-down of a 'real life' conversation-would be… — Elizabeth Bowen
What must novel dialogue . . . really be and do? It must be pointed, intentional, relevant. It must crystallize situation. It must express character.… — Elizabeth Bowen
Short of a small range of physical acts-a fight, murder, lovemaking-dialogue is the most vigorous and visible inter-action of which characters in a novel are… — Elizabeth Bowen
On the whole, dialogue is the most difficult thing, without any doubt. It's very difficult, unfortunately. You have to detach yourself from the notion of… — John Fowles
The deepest quality of a work of art will always be the quality of the mind of the producer...No good novel will ever proceed from… — Henry James
Many modern novels have a beginning, a muddle and an end. — Philip Larkin
Novels seem to me to be richer, broader, deeper, more enjoyable than poems. — Philip Larkin
Many different substances, as distinct to the practiced eye as stone and wood, go to the making of a novel, and it is necessary to… — Percy Lubbock
I am inclined to think that as I grow older I will come to be infatuated with the art of revision, and there may come… — Joyce Carol Oates
If you caricature friends in your first novel they will be upset, but if you don't they will feel betrayed. — Mordecai Richler
Editors seek out the first novels with the seductiveness of Don Juans; the pleasure of discovery is one of the obvious reasons. — William Targ
What we know about writing the novel is the novel. — Eudora Welty
You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing. — Gene Wolfe
The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every… — Ernest Hemingway
A novel is a piece of architecture. It's not random wallowings or confessional diaries. It's a building-it has to have walls and floors and the… — John Irving

Who Wrote These Novel Quotes

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