Novelists Quote by Gore Vidal

Southerners love a good tale. They are born reciters, great memory retainers, diary keepers, letter exchangers . . . great talkers.

— Eudora Welty

I thought I had to write literature and add my name to the list of great Southern storytellers. Fortunately for me, no one wanted…

— Karin Slaughter

There are two qualities that make fiction. One is the sense of mystery and the other is the sense of manners. You get the…

— Flannery O'Connor

Southern writing is regional: it includes dialect, settings, and cultural traditions from that region. However the themes and story conflicts are universal. My challenge…

— Mary Alice Monroe

Maybe the example of Southern fiction writing has been so powerful that Southern poets have sort of keyed themselves to that.

— Robert Morgan

In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.

— E. O. Wilson

I think often people don't realize the great diversity of Southern writing because in their minds, if you're not from the South, it can…

— Natasha Trethewey

Southerners have many fine qualities, charm and civility among them, and a sense of the tragic....

— Dean Koontz

I don't like to be described as a Southern writer. The danger is, if you're described as a Southern writer, you might be thought…

— Walker Percy

Many Southern writers must have learned the art of storytelling from listening to oral tales. I did. It gave me the knowledge that the…

— Erskine Caldwell

There are dozens of great American writers who write about the family.

— William Nicholson

So I'm not a Southern writer in the commonly held sense of the term, like Faulkner or Eudora Welty, who took the South for…

— Donna Tartt