Book Quote by Roger Zelazny

Novels help us to resist the temptation to think of the past as deficient.

— Ian Mcewan

I try to research or make up for myself what happened in any character's life. From when he was born until the first page…

— Viggo Mortensen

I embellished many details about my past experiences, and altered others in order to serve what I felt was the greater purpose of the…

— James Frey

Novel-writing can be a cold-blooded business. One uses whatever happens to be lying around in memory and employs it to suit one’s end….Then, again,…

— Anonymous

You take something from your past that you're somewhat ashamed about and you write about it from another character's point of view.

— Jess Walter

“What happened is the least of it. It’s a novel, and once you’ve finished a novel, what happened in it is of little importance…

— Javier Marías

I think the main thing to remember when writing a novel is to stay true to the characters.

— Cassandra Clare

If the novelist isn't surprised by where his book ends up, he or she probably hasn't written anything worth remembering.

— Tom Robbins

Another thing I learned is that novels, even those from apparently distant times and places, remain current and enlightening, and also comforting.

— Jane Smiley

“The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the…

— Thomas Mullen

“I suppose I've never set out to write a novel in which nothing happens . . . only to write a novel about the…

— Alice McDermott

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