Historian Quote by Philippa Gregory

I only became a novelist because I thought I had missed my chance to become a historian.

— Hilary Mantel

As a novelist, I cannot occupy myself with "characters," or at any rate central ones, who lack panache, in one or another sense, who…

— Elizabeth Bowen

I like to think of myself as an unmediated novelist - or perhaps a national novelist.

— E. L. Doctorow

I have nothing but great respect for great scholars. But I was in grad school in the '80s and '90s, at the height of…

— Daniel Mendelsohn

Many writers are radical. I am not, because of my age and because of my terrible fear of demagogy.

— Heinrich Boll

I recognize myself to be an intensely naive person. Most novelists are, despite frequent pretensions to deep socio-political insight.

— Zadie Smith

I think of myself now as a writer, although I wouldn't go as far as to say 'novelist' because that sounds like a Victorian…

— Dawn French

Many people think of me as a modernist, as a radical in music, you know, someone who's always sort of at the avant-garde of…

— Gunther Schuller

The pull of history has been a strong theme in my life as a novelist.

— Anita Shreve

I've basically thought of myself as a writer, whether I was or not.

— Bob Schieffer

Not until my middle thirties did I consider myself a novelist.

— Rita Mae Brown

I'm not a biographer, I'm a novelist.

— Barry Unsworth