Books Quote by Joan Didion

I don't start a novel until I have lived with the story for awhile to the point of actually writing an outline and after…

— John Grisham

I think one of the good things about writing novels is that you always start from scratch.

— Maria Semple

For me, writing a novel is more like digging a well than climbing a mountain - some heroic thing where I set out to…

— Mohsin Hamid

Initially I only decided to try and write a novel because I wasn't getting enough screenwriting work. It wasn't a long-held ambition, and certainly…

— Stef Penney

I knew I wanted to write novels, but I could not finish what I started. The closer I got, the more ways I'd find…

— Steven Pressfield

Yes. To write a novel is to risk my sanity. The deeper I get into the suffering and conflict of the characters, into the…

— Anne Rice

Most fiction series are written so that the reader can come in at any point and not feel lost, but if you can start…

— Julia Quinn

Writing a novel isn't like building a brick wall. You don't figure out how to do it, and then it gets easier each time…

— Kate DiCamillo

With a novel, you have to have a story. It's much more important to have it matter to the reader what happens to people,…

— Dave Barry

I never, ever decided that I had to write a novel because, to me, there's no such decision that ought to be made. It's…

— Arundhati Roy

To me, novels are a trip of discovery, and you discover things that you don't know and you assume that many of your readers…

— Tom Wolfe

I'm not reading any novels right now, though not for lack of trying. Unless they're really good, my attention in most novels tends to…

— Matthew Healy