Best Novelists Wisdom

478 Novelists quotes by 343 unique authors

Be born anywhere, little embryo novelist, but do not be born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the burden of original sin,… — Pearl S. Buck
A novel is based on evidence, + or -x, the unknown quantity being the temperament of the novelist, and the unknown quantity always modifies the… — E. M. Forster
It is the function of the novelist to reveal the hidden life at its source: to tell us more about Queen Victoria than could be… — E. M. Forster
People in a novel can be understood completely by the reader, if the novelist can be understood completely by the reader, if the novelist wishes;… — E. M. Forster
It is never possible for a novelist to deny time inside the fabric of his novel: he must cling, however lightly, to the thread of… — E. M. Forster
I sometimes think novelists write about sex in order to avoid boring themselves to death. — Walker Percy
Universities are filled with poets and novelists conducting demure and careful lives in imitation of Eliot and Forster and those others who (through what seems… — Gore Vidal
In general, of course, a stranger who tries to get you into an automobile is anything but noble, and in general a person who quotes… — Daniel Handler
Let’s hope the institution of marriage survives its detractors, for without it there would be no more adultery and without adultery two thirds of our… — Peter S. Prescott
Don't be a novelist --- be a statistician. Much more scope for the imagination. — Darrell Huff
Just as the painter thinks with his brush and paints the novelist thinks with his story. — W. Somerset Maugham
Among the many problems which beset the novelist, not the least weighty is the choice of the moment at which to begin his novel. — Vita Sackville-West
Things that appear on the front page of the newspaper as 'fact' are far more dangerous than the games played by a novelist, and can… — E L Doctorow
The businessman who is a novelist is able to drop in on literature and feel no suicidal loss of esteem if the lady is not… — V. S. Pritchett
No one, at any rate no English writer, has written better about childhood than Dickens. In spite of all the knowledge that has accumulated since,… — George Orwell
You have to go out of your way as a suspense novelist to find situations where the protagonists are somewhat helpless and in real danger. — Nelson DeMille
They can't yank a novelist like they can a pitcher. A novelist has to go the full nine, even if it kills him. — Ernest Hemingway
I meet kids now who become novelists, poets, write for the theater and movies, who were simply inspired by what they saw during the Spoleto… — Pat Conroy
The novelist screws up his courage in order to invest another two or three years in another attempt to float a boat of original design… — Edward Hoagland
Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion. — Arnold Bennett
All novelists write in a different way, but I always write in longhand and then do two versions of typescript on a computer. — Martin Amis
Language leads a double life - and so does the novelist. You chat with family and friends, you attend to your correspondence, you consult menus… — Martin Amis
Novelists don't age as quickly as philosophers, who often face professional senility in their late twenties. — Martin Amis
Novelists tend to go off at 70, and I'm in a funk about it, I've got myself into a real paranoid funk about it, how… — Martin Amis
Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present. — Edmond de Goncourt

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