249 Novelist Quotes for You to Enjoy

A novelist can get by on story, but the poet has nothing but the words. Janet Fitch

Words Poet Nothing Get Story Novelist

Every 'Observer' writer wants to be a novelist. Jared Kushner

Every Writer Observer Wants Novelist

You say that you hope I will be recognized as the best novelist of my generation. I want you to know now and know completely that that would mean to me absolutely nothing. Jean Stafford

Hope Best Me You Generation Will Nothing Say Recognized Would My Generation Absolutely Absolutely Nothing Know Want Mean Novelist Now

I was a frustrated musician, frustrated designer, frustrated art director, frustrated novelist, right. I'd fail at all these different professions. Jeffrey Zeldman

Art Director Musician Fail Different Frustrated Novelist Professions Right Designer

'Empire of Self' is a loving portrait of a very difficult man. Jay Parini, himself a gifted novelist, poet and biographer, has gone very deep into the 'black energy' of Gore Vidal's relentless narcissism and megalomania. Parini envisions an epic battle between Vidal's angelic and demonic sides, yet there's very little of the angel in Vidal. Jerome Charyn

Man Battle Black Angel Poet Narcissism Energy Gone Difficult Sides Relentless Gifted Angelic Self Between Empire Gore Himself Demonic Very Loving Little Epic Jay Deep Novelist Portrait

A novelist has a specific poetic license which also applies to his own life. Jerzy Kosinski

Life Own License Poetic Also His Which Novelist Specific

Naturally, it was easier for me to envision becoming a novelist than it is for most people. I had two great in-house teachers; I had parents who considered a career in the arts a real possibility rather than a dreamy arrow shot into the sky. Jesse Kellerman

Great Me People Sky Parents Considered Easier Possibility Rather Had Envision Most Becoming Real Arrow Than Arts Shot Teachers Naturally Who Novelist Career Two

For years, I felt I was a novelist, but now I know I can write short fiction. Jill McCorkle

Write Know Felt Years Short Fiction Novelist Now

I stopped being an engaged journalist and became a disengaged novelist. Jim Crace

Journalist Became Disengaged Stopped Being Engaged Novelist

Telling ourselves that fiction is in a sense true and at the same time not true is essential to the art of fiction. It's been at the heart of fiction from the start. Fiction offers both truth, and we know it's a flat-out lie. Sometimes it drives a novelist mad. Sometimes it energizes us. Joanna Scott

I know that books I have written will still resonate in 50 years - particularly 'My Sister's Keeper.' It has sold three million copies in the States alone. I strongly feel that, as a novelist, you have a platform and the ability to change people's minds. Jodi Picoult

Alone You Change People Resonate Will Three Sister Sold Minds Books States Ability Strongly Written Feel Know Particularly Still Years Novelist Platform Keeper Million Copies

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

My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a novelist were long, always plotted, novels - not just Victorian novels, but also those of my New England ancestors: Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne. John Irving

Me Animal Writing Made Long First Ancestors Those Plot Almost New Also Attraction Read New England Always Were Just Want Which Victorian England Novelist Novels Extinct

There are autobiographical elements to the albums, and when I write, I always reference my own life as well as other things, so I'm just like any novelist or any fiction writer who tells stories. John Legend

Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there's no kind of agreed form of manners. John McGahern

Beautiful People Problems Some People Manners Kind One Of The Problems Some Fact Also Yes Ireland Form Formal Mean Agreed Novelist

When you are a novelist, you are used to making a narrative do what you want. John Niven

You Narrative Making Want Used Novelist

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

A Christian novelist tries to describe the world as it is. John Updike

World Christian Tries Describe Novelist

Like every novelist, I fantasise about film. Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from, and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader. John le Carre

Creative Own Energy Every Imagination Tremendously Out Dressing About Scene Relying Casting Write Like Also Make Reader Opinion Equipped Coming Where In My Opinion Movie Working Novelist Novelists Film

Novelist Quotes

No more novelist quotes