People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them.
– Flannery O’Connor
Tag: novel
Quotable 455
Novels begin not on the page, but in meditation and day-dreaming, in thinking not writing.
– Joyce Carol Oates
Quotable 433
The true influence of a great novel is to say to a subsequent novelist, Go thou and do otherwise.
– Julian Barnes
Quotable 425
Writing doesn’t get easier with time; every novel is a first novel.
– John le Carré
Quotable 408
People are always coming up with new theories of the novel, but the main one is: Hold My Attention.
– Margaret Atwood
Quotable 377
A novel should be an experience and convey an emotional truth rather than arguments.
– Joyce Cary
Quotable 362
With every novel I write, a line of discarded pages will stretch for miles behind me.
– Margo Orlando Littell
Quotable 361
Read like mad. But try to do it analytically – which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It’s worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work.
– Sarah Waters
Quotable 233
Characters make their own plot. The dimensions of the characters determine the action of the novel.
– Harper Lee
Quotable 225
Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person.
– Barbara Kingsolver