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Novel Quotes
When I wrote my novel, 'The Ministry of Special Cases,' I couldn't even brush my teeth. I had to write in isolation from everything else. I thought a play would take away from my fiction, but the more projects I work on, the more time I have.
Nathan Englander
Work
Time
Thought
Isolation
Else
Teeth
Everything
Everything Else
Projects
Would
Ministry
Cases
More
Brush
Write
Take
Had
Wrote
Fiction
Special
Even
Novel
Away
Play
Nantucket was a Quaker-based culture, so they were not readers. There's a great Nantucket-based novel from the 19th century that Melville read for his research for 'Moby-Dick': 'Miriam Coffin' by Joseph Hart.
Nathaniel Philbrick
Great
Culture
Research
Hart
Joseph
Read
Readers
Were
His
Century
Novel
Coffin
For me, 'Moby-Dick' is more than the greatest American novel ever written; it is a metaphysical survival manual - the best guidebook there is for a literate man or woman facing an impenetrable unknown: the future of civilization in this storm-tossed 21st century.
Nathaniel Philbrick
Future
Best
Me
Man
Survival
Woman
Unknown
More
Civilization
Facing
Written
Greatest
Metaphysical
Than
American
Literate
Century
Manual
Novel
Ever
Plot is tremendously important to me: I can't stand books where nothing happens, and I can't imagine ever writing a novel without at least one murder.
Ned Beauman
Me
Writing
Important
Nothing
Tremendously
Books
Plot
At Least One
Without
Least
Where
Happens
Stand
Novel
Ever
Imagine
I think there's a joy to be had in taking readers where they just don't want to go. If you are writing a properly realist novel, then don't blink. Why not see something for what it is and render it truthfully? I find it a good way of going about writing - not to blink.
Neel Mukherjee
Good
You
Writing
Joy
Think
Way
Find
See
About
Something
Properly
Good Way
Had
Taking
Render
Readers
Blink
Go
Truthfully
Going
Just
Where
Want
Realist
Then
Novel
Why
Why Not
I suspect there are two kinds of novelists. Those who have a point of view and have something to say and then write a novel in order to say that thing, and those of us who write the book in order to find out what we think about that thing.
Neil Gaiman
Book
Think
Say
Those
Out
Find
Kinds
About
Something
Point
Point Of View
Write
Suspect
Order
Then
Us
View
Who
Novel
Novelists
Thing
Two
I took two years away from making films to write a novel.
Neil Jordan
Films
Took
Write
Making
Years
Novel
Away
Two
I've always been a little bit more of a novel reader than a short story reader. I think the first books that made me want to be a writer were novels.
Nell Freudenberger
Me
Made
First
Think
Books
Bit
More
Writer
Reader
Always
Were
Been
Than
Short
Want
Short Story
Story
Little
Little Bit
Novel
Novels
In the summer of 2010, I was working on a version of 'True Detective' that I was thinking might be my next novel, and it was told in these two first-person voices; Cohle and Hart's voices.
Nic Pizzolatto
Thinking
Summer
Hart
Detective
Voices
True
True Detective
First-Person
Version
Might
Next
Working
Novel
Two
At DePauw, I was teaching writing and fiction. The things I wanted to teach, more than anything else, were form and theory of the novel, of narrative. I liked those classes.
Nic Pizzolatto
Writing
Else
Those
Classes
More
More Than Anything
Liked
Narrative
Were
Than
Fiction
Wanted
Form
Anything
Anything Else
Teach
Teaching
Theory
Novel
Things
A screenplay is not a finished product; a novel is. A screenplay is a blueprint for something - for a building that will most likely never be built.
Nicholas Meyer
Will
Finished
Building
Something
Finished Product
Never
Most
Likely
Built
Blueprint
Screenplay
Product
Novel
I did not think much what I was writing them for, except that I knew I wanted my next novel to be in some less conventional form than straight narrative.
Nicholas Mosley
Writing
Think
Some
Except
Knew
Narrative
Than
Did
Wanted
Conventional
Form
Straight
Them
Much
Next
Less
Novel
My father had always identified himself as a writer to my mother when they met. When they met, he was writing this great novel, there was no doubt about it. Part of why she left him was this delusion of greatness and identifying it very directly with being an artist.
Nick Flynn
Great
Writing
Mother
Father
Met
Doubt
No Doubt
About
Directly
Writer
Had
He
Part
Delusion
Identified
Identifying
She
Him
Himself
Always
Left
Greatness
Very
Artist
Being
Novel
Why
I wrote the first draft of 'Tigerman' while my wife was pregnant - needless to say, I was relaxed and casual about her well-being during this tender time - and the novel clearly has its center in that panicked parental desperation that accompanies a first child and in the admittedly comedic extremes to which it drives us.
Nick Harkaway
Time
Desperation
Wife
First
Needless
Panicked
Extremes
Relaxed
Say
Admittedly
About
Parental
Tender
Casual
Drives
Clearly
First Child
Comedic
Wrote
Well-Being
Accompanies
Child
Center
Which
While
Pregnant
Us
Novel
Her
Draft
There is not now, nor I suspect will there ever be, a le Carre novel with ninjas in it. Most serious novelists are wary of including ninjas in their writing. That's a shame, because many much-admired works of modern fiction could benefit from a few.
Nick Harkaway
Writing
Will
Few
Benefit
Shame
Could
Most
Because
Nor
Suspect
Modern
Fiction
Many
Wary
Works
Novel
Serious
Including
Novelists
Now
Ever
In a novel, even if you put a country in the wrong hemisphere, which I've done, I can always claim it was part of the additional weirdness of the story.
Nick Harkaway
You
Country
Additional
Claim
Part
Put
Wrong
Weirdness
Always
Done
Story
Which
Even
Novel
Hemisphere
When you're adapting a novel, there are always scenes taken out of the book, and no matter which scenes they are, it's always someone's favorite. As a screenwriter, you realize, 'Well, it doesn't work if you include everyone's favorite scenes.'
Nick Hornby
Work
You
Book
Matter
Adapting
Everyone
Favorite
Out
Someone
Scenes
Taken
Well
Always
Screenwriter
Which
Realize
Include
Novel
The most important thing for me is realism. I don't like writing which does somersaults on the page, and I'm no great fan of the hard work literary novel.
Nick Hornby
Work
Hard Work
Great
Me
Writing
Important
Like
Most
Most Important Thing
Does
Important Thing
The Most Important
Fan
Literary
Which
Realism
Page
Hard
Novel
Thing
I try to write about realistic people doing realistic things. Or as close as I can get, given that I'm trying to write a suspenseful crime novel.
Nick Petrie
People
Try
Crime
Realistic
About
Given
Write
Doing
Close
Get
Trying
Suspenseful
Novel
Things
My first novel, 'Man Walks Into a Room,' is about a man who's lost his memory and has to start a second life. On one level, it's about how we create a coherent sense of self.
Nicole Krauss
Life
Man
Memory
First
Lost
Walks
Sense
About
Self
How
His
Room
Create
Novel
Level
Start
Second
Coherent
Having written for film and television, I had little interest in turning 'The Good Father' into a Hollywood thriller. I was writing a novel, and novels demand that the writer goes deeper, both emotionally and thematically.
Noah Hawley
Good
Writing
Father
Television
Having
Thriller
Both
Writer
Had
Emotionally
Written
Demand
Goes
Interest
Little
Hollywood
Turning
Novel
Novels
Film
Good Father
Deeper
Film And Television
I try to approach the film medium as a novelist and the novel medium as a filmmaker on some level. It's that question: Do we think in pictures, or do we think in language? And the novelist believes one thing, and the filmmaker believes another thing - and I'm fascinated by that balance.
Noah Hawley
Balance
Try
Language
Think
Medium
Approach
One Thing
Some
Pictures
Another
Question
Fascinated
Novel
Novelist
Film
Believes
Thing
Level
Filmmaker
It's not a good idea to put your wife into a novel; not your latest wife anyway.
Norman Mailer
Good
Wife
Latest
Put
Idea
Anyway
Your
Novel
Good Idea
I'm omnivorous in my tastes, fiction and non-fiction, always several books on the go, though I'll read a novel in a day or two.
O. R. Melling
Day
Books
Several
Though
Read
Non-Fiction
Always
Go
Tastes
Fiction
Novel
Two
No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly.
Octavia E. Butler
Business
Slow
Long
Slowly
Write
Writer
Well
Doing
Very
Even
Novel
Several years ago, when I was about to start a novel, I thought I might get some mileage out of the idea of a civilization in which people somehow felt - that is, they shared - all the pain and all the pleasure they caused one another.
Octavia E. Butler
People
Thought
Pain
Several
Pleasure
Out
Some
About
Somehow
Civilization
Shared
Idea
Another
Felt
Caused
Years
Years Ago
Get
Which
Might
Mileage
Novel
Start
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