Quotesia
Home
Authors
Popular authors
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
William Christopher Handy
Rabindranath Tagore
Richard L. Evans
Marcus Aurelius
Paul Valery
All authors
Today's birthdays
1884 - Eleanor Roosevelt
1926 - Thich Nhat Hanh
1942 - Amitabh Bachchan
1992 - Cardi B
1967 - Peter Thiel
1961 - Steve Young
Today's birthdays
Popular professions
Astronaut
Comedian
Cartoonist
Artist
Chef
Philosopher
All professions
Authors by letter
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
All authors
Topics
Top Quotes
Quotesia
Quote Topics
Novel Quotes
Novel Quotes
Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.
John Irving
Writing
Looking
Write
Casualties
Uncover
Stories
Victims
Novel
Searching
Keep
Actually
I don't begin a novel or a screenplay until I know the ending. And I don't mean only that I have to know what happens. I mean that I have to hear the actual sentences. I have to know what atmosphere the words convey.
John Irving
Words
Ending
Atmosphere
Only
Know
Until
Hear
Begin
Screenplay
Happens
Mean
Convey
Sentences
Novel
Actual
I'm not a twentieth-century novelist, I'm not modern, and certainly not postmodern. I follow the form of the nineteenth-century novel; that was the century that produced the models of the form. I'm old-fashioned, a storyteller. I'm not an analyst, and I'm not an intellectual.
John Irving
Analyst
Follow
Postmodern
Intellectual
Models
Modern
Form
Storyteller
Century
Produced
Certainly
Old-Fashioned
Novel
Novelist
'Great Expectations' was an important novel in my adolescence. It was very much one of those emblematic novels that made me wish I could write like that. It helped that my models as a writer were dead over a hundred years before I began to write.
John Irving
Great
Me
Made
Wish
Important
Before
Hundred
Hundred Years
Those
Adolescence
Could
Write
Writer
Over
Like
Dead
Were
Years
Began
Very
Expectations
Models
Much
Helped
Novel
Novels
There's a lot of ignorance about how long it takes to write a novel. There's a lot of ignorance about how long a novel is in your head before you start to write it.
John Irving
You
Ignorance
Long
Before
About
Write
Head
Takes
How
Lot
Your
Novel
Start
'The Fourth Hand' was a novel that came from twenty years of screenwriting concurrently with whatever novel I'm writing.
John Irving
Writing
Whatever
Came
Years
Hand
Screenwriting
Novel
Twenty
Fourth
Anybody can do research. The plotting of the novel, writing the ending before you write anything else, which I always do - I don't know that everybody can do that. That's the hard part.
John Irving
You
Writing
Ending
Before
Research
Everybody
Else
Plotting
Write
Part
Know
Always
Anybody
Anything
Anything Else
Which
Hard
Hard Part
Novel
A novel usually begins, in my experience, with a thought or image that won't leave me alone.
John Lanchester
Alone
Me
Experience
Thought
Leave
Leave Me Alone
Begins
Novel
Image
I have a horror of going down dead ends, which you can easily do with a novel, spending months on it and then realising that it's all wrong. It's demoralising, because you don't get the time back.
John Lanchester
Time
You
Down
Back
Spending
Months
Easily
Horror
Wrong
Dead
Because
Get
Going
Ends
Which
Realising
Then
Novel
I do believe in that thing about the reading audience being very important to the formation of the novel at its birth.
John Lanchester
Important
Reading
Believe
Birth
About
Audience
Very
Being
Formation
Novel
Thing
The 'stuff' in novels touches on every aspect of the world and people's lives. That's what makes it so remarkable just how little there is in the novel about the world of money.
John Lanchester
People
World
Money
Every
About
Remarkable
Stuff
Makes
How
Just
Little
Aspect
Novel
Novels
Lives
You can't explain collateralized debt obligation in a novel - it's too draggy.
John Lanchester
You
Obligation
Too
Debt
Explain
Novel
I used to write books and plays in my mind, but I doubt that any of them would have been above the level of the cheapest dime novel.
John McCain
Mind
Doubt
Books
Dime
Would
Above
Write
Cheapest
Been
Any
Them
Used
Novel
Level
Plays
It is publication week for my new novel 'The Sunshine Cruise Company.' Go me! Anyway, I may as well get the shameless plug over with right away - buy it. You'll like it. It's about a bunch of old ladies who rob a bank.
John Niven
Buy
Me
You
Sunshine
Old
Plug
About
Week
Shameless
Cruise
Over
New
Rob
Like
Well
Go
Bunch
Get
May
Bank
Ladies
Anyway
Who
Company
Novel
Publication
Away
Right
Right Away
I had left the music industry at the end of 2001, after 10 years, and had spent three years writing every single day - producing two unpublished novels, one abandoned novel, and three unproduced screenplays. The word 'no' and I were on more than nodding terms. The word 'no' and I were talking about going on holiday together.
John Niven
Music
Day
Together
Writing
Word
Three
Single
Every
Music Industry
Spent
Abandoned
Unpublished
About
More
Had
Terms
Industry
Talking
Single Day
Were
Years
Left
End
Than
Going
Screenplays
After
Holiday
Producing
Novel
Novels
Two
Every Single Day
A novel I read when I was about 17 or 18 - 'The World According to Garp,' by John Irving - really made me want to become a writer. The character of Garp is a novelist, and at the time, the whole lifestyle of being a writer was hugely appealing to me.
John Niven
Time
Character
Me
World
Made
Become
John
About
Lifestyle
Writer
Read
According
Hugely
Being
Want
Really
Appealing
Whole
Novel
Novelist
But compared to writing a novel, where you can be God, I did the Bay of Pigs invasion in six pages once, and there were 50,000 guys with boots that I didn't have to pay, and all those extras; we didn't have to pay them.
John Sayles
God
You
Writing
Pay
Once
Those
Bay
Boots
Invasion
Guys
Pigs
Were
Did
Six
Where
Them
Pages
Novel
Compared
I think I got spoiled and that writing a short story and getting it published, or writing a novel and getting it published, you pretty much get to do the first, second and third draft yourself without a whole lot of interference.
John Sayles
You
Yourself
Writing
First
Think
Pretty
Spoiled
Without
Got
Lot
Get
Getting
Short
Short Story
Story
Much
Interference
Whole
Novel
Published
Second
Draft
Third
If you want to write the next great novel, but you think, No, this won't work because no one will buy it or it won't be any good, then you talk yourself out of taking a risk.
John Tesh
Work
Buy
Good
Great
You
Yourself
Will
Think
Out
Risk
Write
No-One
Taking
Talk
Because
Any
Want
Then
Next
Novel
John Barth, I think, was really a writer of my own age and somewhat of my own temperament, although his books are very different from mine, and he has been a spokesman for the very ambitious, long, rather academic novel. But I don't think that what he is saying, so far as I understand it, is so very different from what I'm saying.
John Updike
Saying
Age
Long
Own
Think
Books
Mine
Has-Been
Temperament
John
My Own
Rather
Somewhat
Writer
He
Spokesman
Academic
Although
Understand
Been
His
Ambitious
Very
Different
Far
Really
Novel
I see no intrinsic reason why a doubly talented artist might not arise and create a comic-strip novel masterpiece.
John Updike
Intrinsic
See
Arise
Talented
Masterpiece
Artist
Might
Create
Doubly
Reason
Novel
Why
I always imagined a writer was someone who lived in an attic in Paris, but my mum instilled in me a belief that I could do anything - so I ended up writing my first novel while working nights as a news reporter.
Jojo Moyes
News
Me
Writing
First
Nights
Someone
Paris
Could
Writer
Instilled
Attic
Always
Up
Reporter
Ended
Anything
While
Working
Who
Novel
Belief
Lived
Mum
Imagined
Once you buy into a television show, there doesn't have to be resolution from week to week. You can develop characters and storylines and react to the audience, so you get more of a serialized version of storytelling where you can go much deeper into each character. It's more like a novel.
Jon Favreau
Buy
Character
You
Once
Television
Television Show
Characters
More
Week
Develop
Like
React
Audience
Go
Version
Get
Where
Storytelling
Much
Show
Novel
Each
Deeper
Resolution
It seems to me that you would have to write a novel on a very small, intimate scale for it not to become political.
Jonathan Coe
Me
You
Political
Become
Intimate
Scale
Would
Seems
Small
Write
Very
Novel
I personally feel I still have so much to learn as a writer; each novel is better than the one before, just because I'm getting better at it.
Jonathan Dee
Better
Before
Writer
Feel
Learn
Because
Still
Than
Getting
Getting Better
Just
Just Because
Personally
Much
Novel
Each
What could be more boring than a novel that tells you how to think about everything that happens in it?
Jonathan Dee
You
Think
Everything
Tells
Boring
About
More
Could
How
Than
Happens
Novel
Load more quotes
No more novel quotes
Haven't find the right quote? Try another of these similiar topics.
About
Always
Am
Any