1137 Novel Quotes for You to Enjoy

It's the technique, I think, of writing a novel that is difficult for a nonfiction writer. E. O. Wilson

Writing Difficult Think Writer Nonfiction Novel Technique

In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner. E. O. Wilson

Addition Write Because Southern Southerner Wanted Novel

I had reached a point in my career in which I was ready to try something new in my writing, and the idea of a novel has always been in the back of my mind. E. O. Wilson

Writing Try Mind Back Something Something New Point Had Idea New Reached Ready Always Been Which Novel Career

Before my book, 'California,' came out, I had modest hopes for it. Or, let's put it this way - I had the same hopes that every literary fiction writer in America has: I wanted the novel to be well-received, critically. As for sales? I didn't want it to disappoint, but I didn't expect it to be a best-seller, either. Edan Lepucki

Book Before Every Way Out Critically Hopes Best-Seller Writer Had Put Disappoint California Came Sales Expect America Same Want Fiction Wanted Fiction Writer Literary Literary Fiction Either Modest Novel

An economy open to new concepts and novel ventures is bound to generate unequal gains. Edmund Phelps

Open Generate Bound New Economy Concepts Ventures Unequal Gains Novel

Expertise and judgment in the art of lending for novel ventures must be reacquired. Edmund Phelps

Art Judgment Must Ventures Expertise Lending Novel

'One Hundred Years of Solitude' is a masterpiece because it is an episodic novel that has a rigorous form - an unprecedented combination. From the very beginning we know the town of Macondo will endure only a century, so there is a limit to the length of the narrative. Edmund White

Solitude Will Beginning Hundred Hundred Years Rigorous Unprecedented Only Combination Town Know Masterpiece Because Limit Narrative Years Very Endure Form Length Century Episodic Novel

In the case of my book, I don't think it's really the coming-out gay novel that everyone really needed, even though it was received as such. The boy is too creepy, he betrays his teacher, the only adult man with whom he's enjoyed a sexual experience, etc. Edmund White

Teacher Gay Man Experience Book Think Too Everyone Though Sexual Case Betrays Only Adult He Boy His Etc Really Even Novel Whom Enjoyed Received Needed Creepy

Part of my problem as a young writer was that I was too much a New Yorker, always second-guessing the 'market.' I became so discouraged that I decided to write something that would please me alone - that became my sole criterion. And that was when I wrote 'Forgetting Elena,' the first novel I got published. Edmund White

Alone Me Problem Too Much First Discouraged Young Too Market Please Sole Criterion Would Something Write Writer Part New Wrote Became Always Got Yorker Forgetting New Yorker Decided Much Novel Published

A straight writer can write a gay novel and not worry about it, and a gay novelist can write about straight people. Edmund White

Gay People Worry About Write Writer Straight Straight People Novel Novelist

Reading the several thousand pages of Christopher Isherwood's complete journals is an instructive corrective to the prissiness of reading fiction. Isherwood had faults that we'd say were unforgiveable in a novel (he was careful to distance himself from these in his autobiographical fiction). Edmund White

'The Sound of Things Falling' may be a page turner, but it's also a deep meditation on fate and death. Even in translation, the superb quality of Vasquez's prose is evident, captured in Anne McLean's idiomatic English version. All the novel's characters are well imagined, original and rounded. Edmund White

Death Quality Fate Translation Meditation Evident Characters Superb Prose Anne Also Well Sound Falling Version May Turner Page English Deep Original Even Novel Captured Rounded Things Imagined

In a novel, I think you have a contract with the reader to make the character representative - of a moment in history, a social class... for instance, I wanted to make the boy in 'A Boy's Own Story' more like other gay men of my generation in their youth and not like me. Edmund White

Character Me Gay History You Class Youth Generation Men Own Think Other My Generation More Instance Like Make Reader Boy Contract Representative Wanted Story Social Social Class Moment Novel

I've always been impelled to say the truth. When I was 14, in 1954, I already wrote a gay novel, though I'd never read one. I felt that life handed me a great subject, gay life, that had scarcely been examined, and I was impelled to record it in all its strange detail. Edmund White

I suppose people hadn't really thought each decade should have its own character and be different from the others till the 1920s, although I remember in a nineteenth-century Russian novel someone remarked that a character was a typical man of the 1830s - progressive and an atheist. Edmund White

My exposure to Beckett and to late O'Neill was probably important right at the time I gave up poetry and the novel. Edward Albee

Time Important Gave Late Poetry Beckett Up Exposure Novel Right

The medical nanobots in my novel 'Small Miracles' tap the energy sources that the patient's own body provides. That is, they can metabolize glycerol and glucose, just as the cells in our bodies do. Edward M. Lerner

Miracles Own Patient Energy Our Small Tap Sources Provides Cells Just Energy Sources Bodies Body Novel Medical

Proust is a hero of mine. I read 'A la recherche' in one go, and I'm a very slow reader. It had an astonishing impact, reading it on my own and being my main company. I think Proust is the most intelligent person to ever have written a novel. Edward St Aubyn

Hero Slow Reading Own Think Astonishing Mine Impact My Own Main Had Written Most Read Reader Proust Go La Very Intelligent Intelligent Person Person Being Company Novel Ever

I much prefer a plotted novel to a novel that is really conceptual. Eleanor Catton

Conceptual Prefer Much Really Novel

My second novel, 'The Luminaries,' is set in the New Zealand gold rushes of the 1860s, though it's not really a historical novel in the conventional sense. So far, I've been describing it as 'an astrological murder mystery.' Eleanor Catton

Sense Though Mystery New Been Historical Gold Conventional New Zealand Far Really Describing Novel Zealand Second Set

I like a novel to have a certain amount of dead time and filler - unremarkable scenery, descriptions of getting from point A to point B, dialogue in which not much is said - in between the parts that are electric. With a long work that you don't read in one sitting, I think that makes for the best reading experience. Elif Batuman

Work Time Best You Experience Long Reading Think Scenery Point Between Like Dead Read Parts Makes Said Dialogue Sitting Getting In-Between Which Much Certain Electric Novel Descriptions Filler Amount

There are two different ways of writing a novel. The first I call the traditional father way, when the novelist slightly situates himself or herself above the text and knows what each and every character is going to do. It's a bit like engineering. I've never felt close to that tradition. I like the second way, which relies a bit more on intuition. Elif Safak

Character Writing Father First Engineering Every Herself Way Bit Ways Slightly Intuition Above More Never Like Call Himself Knows Felt Tradition Traditional Text Close Going Different Which Novel Each Novelist Different Ways Second Two

It is tiring to be Turkish. The country is badly polarised, bitterly politicized. Every writer, journalist, poet knows that because of an article, a novel, an interview, a poem or a tweet you can be sued, put on trial, even arrested. Self-censorship is widespread. Elif Safak

You Poet Journalist Country Every Interview Trial Poem Writer Badly Put Self-Censorship Knows Because Arrested Article Tiring Turkish Tweet Even Novel Sued Widespread

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