Books Quote by J. G. Ballard

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.

— Anita Brookner

Writing a novel is like an amusement park or a museum or a city. You go into that place and you have certain experiences…

— Mohsin Hamid

“Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end it's about enriching the lives of those…

— Stephen King

A novel is a work of poetry. In order to write it, one must have tranquility of spirit and of impression.

— Fyodor Dostoevsky

It is not merely enough to love literature if one wishes to spend one's life as a writer. It is a dangerous undertaking on…

— Harlan Ellison

Novelists are no more moral or certain than anybody else; we are ideologically adrift, and if we are any good then our writing will…

— Andrew O'Hagan

You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich.…

— Nelson Algren

“At times I wondered whether writing was not a solipsistic luxury in countries like mine, where there were scant readers, so many people who…

— Mario Vargas Llosa

Novel writing, to me, is all about language: choosing your words, finding the characters within the words and just really agonizing over every word.…

— Jonathan Tropper

“Our job, then, is two-fold: to focus on our own failings as writers. But also to speak more forcefully as advocates for literature. Books…

— Steve Almond

Writers of novels and romance in general bring a double loss to their readers; robbing them of their time and money; representing men, manners,…

— Mary Wortley Montagu

Novel-writing is a highly skilled and laborious trade. One does not just sit behind a screen jotting down other people's conversation. One has for…

— Evelyn Waugh