Books Quote by D. H. Lawrence

It is only a novel... or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the…

— Jane Austen

“There is absolutely everything in great fiction but a clear answer. Humanity itself seems to matter more to the novelist than what humanity thinks…

— Eudora Welty

“The value of a novel is not limited to its depiction of emotions and people akin to those in our own life; it stretches…

— Alain de Botton

Good literature always ends up showing those who read it... the inevitable limitation of all power to fulfill human aspirations and desires.

— Mario Vargas Llosa

“The novels which I approve are such as display human nature with grandeur”

— Jane Austen

“The novelist might be greater possible help to us if they painted life as it is, and human feelings in their true proportion and…

— William Dean Howells

“Fiction that fails to engage an audience with the emotional intricacies of viable characters will, for many in that audience, simply alienate them with…

— Hal Duncan

Human beings have their great chance in the novel.

— Anonymous

A great novelist must open the reader's heart, allow the reader to remember the vastness and glory -- and shame and shabbiness -- of…

— Carolyn See

For forty years I was conscripted by the absolute, the neurosis. The absolute is gone. There remain countless tasks among which literature is in…

— Jean-Paul Sartre

For the book to succeed, it has to have equal parts ugliness and beauty, counterpoints adding up to emotional complexity. To me, there's a…

— Joshua Mohr

The more books we read, the clearer it becomes that the true function of a writer is to produce a masterpiece and that no…

— Cyril Connolly