Creativity Quote by Mary Karr

One thing you learn about the novel as a form is that it's always smarter than you are.

— Zadie Smith

You never know how - or when - the idea for a book will appear.

— Deb Caletti

The novel doesn't come into existence until certain methods of reproducing fiction come along.

— Leslie Fiedler

I write the novels that are possible for me to write, not that ones I think will come across in a certain light.

— Rachel Kushner

I never plan my novels because if I know what is going to happen, it bores me rigid. I let the story tell itself.

— James Herbert

I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself

— Alice Hoffman

I never know what's going to happen in a novel. I don't have a plan or an outline.

— Donna Leon

I believe a novel should be as complicated and involved as you're capable of making it.

— John Irving

I'm always telling myself as I write that I'm not really writing a novel; I'm just going to fool around with a character or…

— Robert Cormier

In fact, with each of my novels I have been surprised by something that happens that I had not thought of beforehand.

— Julie Klassen

Novels are . . . an unsurpassed form to understand people.

— Henning Mankell

My imagination doesn't require anything more of the book than to provide a framework within which it can wander.

— Alphonse Daudet