Books Quote by Matthew Specktor

It is so much hard work writing your first novel. You're not even sure that it is possible to do.

— Asa Larsson

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

— John Irving

Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.

— Joyce Carol Oates

The best way to write a novel is to do it behind your own back.

— China Mieville

To make it interesting and worth doing, writing a novel has to be a leap into the unknown. I have to be unsure if…

— Charles Palliser

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

Writing a novel is not at all like riding a bike. Writing a novel is like having to redesign a bike, based on laws…

— Daniel Alarcon

If you have one strong idea, you can't help repeating it and embroidering it. Sometimes I think that authors should write one novel and…

— John P. Marquand

It takes a lot of energy and a lot of neurosis to write a novel. If you were really sensible, you'd do something else.

— Lawrence Durrell

If one book's done this well, you want to write another one that does just as well. There's that horror of the second novel…

— Mark Haddon

You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel.

— James M. Cain

It's hard for me to think of writing a novel, because it takes so long.

— Jonathan Ames