Books Quote by Howard Jacobson

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

“There are no "great" subjects for the creative writer; there are only the singular details of a single human life.”

— Richard Selzer

Great novels are maps of complication, leading nowhere in particular, taking stances only provisionally and obliquely, happy to be tangled and to lack as…

— Michelle Dean

I think the bravest thing to write about is nothing, just to write a book in which nothing happens.

— Meg Rosoff

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

— Anonymous

“To my mind, the most important thing in any form of fiction is the human element, but only if it takes us beyond the…

— Graham Worthington

In the main, there are two sorts of books: those that no one reads and those that no one ought to read.

— H. L. Mencken

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

“There is no point in having the idea for a wonderful novel if you have never learned to read and write.”

— Ursula Markham

“The greatness of a writer has nothing to do with subject matter itself, only with how much the subject matter touches the author.”

— Boris Pasternak

“Best or worst, novels are all the same. Nothing but love, love, love; what silly nonsense it is! Why don’t people write about the…

— George Gissing

The business of the novelist is not to relate great events, but to make small ones interesting.

— Arthur Schopenhauer