Books Quote by Mark Leyner

I know feeling pressure gets you nowhere creatively. You've just got to understand the character, understand the story, and just play it to the…

— Finn Jones

A novel is a performance you have to plan.

— John Darnielle

With most of my books, I'll actually go out and look at the setting. If you describe things carefully, it kind of makes the…

— John Sandford

I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.

— Alexander McCall Smith

This is, if not a lifetime process, it's awfully close to it. The writer broadens, becomes deeper, becomes more observant, becomes more tempered, becomes…

— Rod Serling

Digression is my passion. I love telling the main stories, but in some ways, what I love most is using those narratives as a…

— Erik Larson

You want to suggest something new, but at the same time, resolve the drama of the action in the novel.

— Michael Ondaatje

Somehow, you can achieve a directness in the novel that you can't get anywhere else.

— Chad Harbach

With any novel that you begin, you can't foresee how difficult or easy it's going to be, and you can't really prepare yourself. You…

— Jane Smiley

I knew the basic outline of the novel [The Dissemblers] and would write whatever scene of the book I felt particularly excited about at…

— Liza Campbell

“You turn the book over in your hands, you scan the sentences on the back of the jacket, generic phrases that don't say a…

— Italo Calvino

The only thing that relieves pressure is preparation.

— Tom Kite