Books Quote by Charles Baxter

For me, the novel is experience illumined by imagination.

— Ellen Glasgow

There is nothing that's been in any of my novels that, in my view, hasn't been either illuminating surroundings or defining a character or…

— Jim Webb

In my experience, a novel is the culmination of various thoughts and impressions collected over time, until something comes along to give them a…

— J. Courtney Sullivan

The novelist helps us to see things we might not notice otherwise.

— Madeleine L'Engle

There's a perception that novels can't usually allow for your kind of absolute attention to detail.

— Zadie Smith

Novels, like human beings, usually have their beginnings in the dark.

— Rita Mae Brown

That seems to be the definition of 'novel' for me: a story that hasn't yet discovered a way to be brief.

— George Saunders

One might say that the novel is the genre that most predisposes one to a profound insight into the tremendous life around us, instead…

— Mikhail Sholokhov

A good novel is an indivisible sum; every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all…

— Ayn Rand

I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself

— Alice Hoffman

A novel is, hopefully, the starting point of a conversation, one in which the author engages readers and asks that they see things from…

— Anne Fortier

But novels are never about what they are about; that is, there is always deeper, or more general, significance. The author may not be…

— Diane Johnson