After Quote by Jay McInerney

I did try to write fiction. I wrote 10 novels. And they were all just awful.

— Alexandra Fuller

Every decade of my life I attempted to write a novel. But I had nothing to say. I was far too self-absorbed, and now…

— Louise Penny

If you read the biographies of people who have written good books, you often see the point where they suddenly come into themselves, and…

— Jonathan Franzen

I couldn't think about novels at all. It seemed the only writing that was appropriate to that horrendous event was journalism, reportage. And, in…

— Ian Mcewan

I recognize myself to be an intensely naive person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight.

— Zadie Smith

I do want to say the process of writing a novel is riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing.

— Meg Wolitzer

I always find out after the fact that the books I've been writing were actually some sort of therapy, some sort of, you know,…

— Blake Crouch

Writing nonfiction has been my most serious education, and for all those years it kept me from even glancing in the direction of despair.

— Marilynne Robinson

I wasn't a very good writer before college. I don't think I was a very good reader.

— DeRay Mckesson

I used to read only fiction. Now I don't read much, only occasionally, such as a Cormac McCarthy or a Jim Harrison novel.

— David Quammen

I was quite a reader before I became a writer.

— Tom T. Hall

Writing a novel proved to be the hardest, most self-analyzing task I had ever attempted, far worse than an autobiography: and its rewards were…

— Dick Francis