9376 quotes by novelists for you to enjoy

For me, one of the most beautiful and rewarding aspects of serial reality TV is that characters can move freely along a spectrum of heroism and villainy. Andrea Seigel

Beautiful Me Reality Most Beautiful Heroism Characters TV Freely Along Most Move Rewarding Reality TV Aspects Serial Villainy Spectrum

Louis CK knows that just because a joke is using space as a resource instead of something to be crammed like a hamper, this doesn't mean a story isn't happening. Andrea Seigel

Space Joke Resource Something Instead Like Knows Because Hamper Louis Just Crammed Just Because Happening Story Mean Using

'Real Housewives of New Jersey' has taught me more about the nature of a vacuum in space than any of the demonstrations in my high school AP physics textbook. Andrea Seigel

I watched the first episode of 'Survivor' in the spring of 2000, thinking I would hate it. My natural inclination steers me toward the indoors not only in my actual life but also in the settings of the entertainment I read and watch. Andrea Seigel

When I left for college, I told myself that this was a chance for reinvention. No one on the other side of the country knew that I was an introvert, so maybe if I tried not acting like an introvert, I wouldn't be one. Andrea Seigel

Myself College Country Other Side Tried Introvert No-One Knew Like Left Maybe Acting Reinvention Chance

I advise all my novel students to write in the company of 'Veronica Mars.' Andrea Seigel

Mars Write Students Advise Veronica Company Novel

Writing a novel is an act of self-annihilation as much as self-discovery. You can kill whole appetites and flood whole depths while plumbing them, but if you are serious about it you also get to put something into the world that wasn't quite there before. Andrew O'Hagan

Long before the arrival of reality TV - before speed cameras, before recording angels on buses and lampposts - I felt I was living in a country that already knew how to watch itself. It was journalism that held the responsibility for seeing who we were and noticing what we did. Andrew O'Hagan

Reality Responsibility Long Recording Country Before Living Speed TV Seeing Angels Knew Journalism Felt How Arrival Were Cameras Itself Did Buses Reality TV Held Noticing Who Watch

When I was growing up, my idea of a writer was someone like Sven Hassel, that mysterious Danish author who wrote thrillers about men clambering over walls and getting tangled in barbed wire. Andrew O'Hagan

A theatre is not a blank page for editorial, it is not a soapbox or a Tannoy system: it is a conscience that wakes with what is happening in the space, and wakes further still in response to what people are making of it. Andrew O'Hagan

Theatre People Space Further System Response Blank Blank Page Making Editorial Still Wakes Happening Soapbox Page Conscience

There's a horrible fallacy that exists in the popular discussion of fiction these days: the idea that a successful central character need be 'likeable' or 'sympathetic'. It is surely more important that they be human, no? More crucial that they breathe? Andrew O'Hagan

As a writer I care about America, and care about its carelessness. Andrew O'Hagan

Care Carelessness I Care About Writer America

A good nationalism has to depend on a principle of the common people, on myths of a struggling commonality. Andrew O'Hagan

Good People Depend Nationalism Struggling Myths Principle Common Common People Commonality

We now live in the era of fake consensus, or phoney populism, a condition in which galleries and homes are seen to succeed best where they manage feelings of non-difference. Andrew O'Hagan

Best Seen Feelings Live Phoney Fake Era Condition Manage Where Which Succeed Galleries Now Homes Consensus

The working class of England take their deracination completely for granted. Disenchantment is the happy code that informs every byway of the underclass: service jobs, celebrity dreams, Lotto wins, leisured poverty on pre-crunch credit cards, it's all there, part of the story of an English people whose grandparents never had it so good. Andrew O'Hagan

Service Dreams Good Class Happy People Poverty Every Jobs Wins Take Never Had Part Celebrity Disenchantment Story Informs Working Grandparents Granted Working-Class England English English People Code Whose Credit Credit Cards Cards

Interviewing is not a democratic art. Andrew O'Hagan

Art Interviewing Democratic

I was 10 when I realised I couldn't stand football. I'd tried, obviously, before this - no one wants to give in to social pariah-hood without a fight. I had stood frozen on pitches, done some running about and shouted a lot, as though I cared. Andrew O'Hagan

The working class of England today have no vision of society beyond the acquisitive - no version of themselves or their habits as anything other than transitional, on their way up or on their way out. The working class, at best, is a waiting room for people who aim to become middle class if possible. Andrew O'Hagan

Today Best Class Waiting People Vision Become Society Other Aim Way Out Possible Habits Beyond Version Up Than Middle Middle Class Anything Room Transitional Themselves Working Working-Class England Who

As an old creative industry full of cruelty and moral sense, British journalism once flourished on the imperative that people required the truth in order to survive. But people don't require that now. They want sensation and they want it for nothing. Andrew O'Hagan

Truth Creative People Old Cruelty Sense Nothing Once Moral Moral Sense Imperative Journalism Industry Survive Sensation Order Want To Survive Require Required Full Now British

The idea that people in novels should be more sympathetic than people in life simply baffles me. Andrew O'Hagan

Life Me People More Simply Idea Than Should Novels Sympathetic

Quotes by Novelists