Able Quote by Manuel Puig

A reader should encounter themselves in a novel, I think.

— Mohsin Hamid

The fiction writer has to engage in a continual examination of conscience. He has to be aware of the freak in himself.

— Flannery O'Connor

The writer can only explore the inner space of his characters by perceptively navigating his own.

— Peter De Vries

The relationship between reader and characters is very difficult. It is even more peculiar than the relationship between the writer and his characters.

— Guillermo Cabrera Infante

The novelist is the person who spends a lot of his or her day thinking about the human drama and emotional complexity.

— Thane Rosenbaum

A writer should bury his thoughts deep and convey them through the characters in his novel.

— Mo Yan

I don't like to read novels where the novelist tells me what to think about the situation and the characters. I prefer to discover…

— Frederick Wiseman

I use my fiction to explore my own unconscious issues. I usually don't even know what's going on with me until I'm writing.

— Janet Fitch

An author's characters do what he wants them to do.

— W. E. B. Griffin

Few authors understand themselves, and a proper reader must not only understand his author but also be able to see beyond him

— Johann Georg Hamann

A good writer refuses to be socialized. He insists on his own version of things, his own consciousness. And by doing so he draws…

— Bill Barich

“Characters in novels sometimes radiate more energy, therefore, when we don’t enter their mind. It is one of the techniques a novelist acquires instinctively—don’t…

— Norman Mailer