249 Novelist Quotes for You to Enjoy

Language leads a double life - and so does the novelist. You chat with family and friends, you attend to your correspondence, you consult menus and shopping lists, you observe road signs, and so on. Then you enter your study, where language exists in quite another form - as the stuff of patterned artifice. Martin Amis

Life Family You Shopping Language Signs Enter Correspondence Consult Chat Attend Road Observe Study Stuff Leads Another Does Exists Friends Family And Friends Artifice Quite Lists Where Form Double Then Your Novelist

In high school, I wanted to be an actress. Until I got to college and took some creative writing courses. Then I decided I wanted to become a novelist. Meg Cabot

Creative Writing School College Become Took High Some High School Until Courses Got Wanted Decided Then Creative Writing Novelist Actress

I am a novelist through and through. Meg Wolitzer

Through Am Novelist

As a novelist, I feel lucky that I can traffic in nuance. I'm more interested in looking at how things change over time, at how people try and sometimes fail to make meaning out of their lives. Meg Wolitzer

A good novelist pays attention to his characters. A good biographer pays attention to the documents before her. A good critic pays close attention to the thing she's brought to evaluate. Michelle Dean

Good Before Critic Characters Brought Attention She Documents His Close Close Attention Evaluate Pays Novelist Her Thing

For a novelist, the great thing about the Stone Age people is that we know virtually nothing about their beliefs - which means that I get to make it up! But it's still got to be plausible. Michelle Paver

I am a former newspaper reporter turned church secretary turned vampire novelist. I wrote my first complete novel, 'Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs,' at night while I was working as the receptionist for a Baptist church. That was an interesting conversation with the pastor. Molly Harper

Conversation Church Girl First Nice Complete Secretary Vampire Wrote Am Pastor Reporter Baptist While Former Interesting Newspaper Newspaper Reporter Turned Working Novel Novelist Night

Vidal was a novelist, an essayist, a playwright, a screenwriter, and many other things. Buckley started a magazine, hosted a TV show, lead a political movement, and was a master debater. They were multihyphenates in a way that you rarely see anymore. Morgan Neville

You Political Master Playwright Other Way TV TV Show See Magazine Rarely Lead Were Political Movement Essayist Movement Anymore Screenwriter Show Many Novelist Things Started

I'm a novelist, editor, short story writer. I also teach, and I freelance sometimes as an arts consultant. Most of my books have been published by Warner Books, now known as Grand Central Books. Nalo Hopkinson

I'm a novelist: I spend a great part of my day pretending to myself that I'm in a different world, being a different person, faced with decisions I pretend I haven't created. Nick Harkaway

Myself Day Great World Pretending Spend Pretend Faced Great Part Part Person Being Different Decisions Created Different Person Novelist Different World

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

Unlike the time sink of binge-watching a TV series, podcasts actually made me more efficient. Practically every dull activity - folding laundry, applying makeup - became tolerable when I did it while listening to a country singer describing his hardscrabble childhood, or a novelist defending her open marriage. Pamela Druckerman

Time Me Marriage Listening Made Country Every Unlike TV Laundry Folding TV Series More Open Country Singer Singer Practically Became Makeup His Dull Sink Efficient Did Childhood While Tolerable Describing Series Novelist Activity Her Actually Applying Defending

'Floating Worlds,' published in 1975 and the lone science fiction novel by acclaimed historical novelist Cecelia Holland, was unique in being completely devoid of the usual pulp influences present in much space opera up to that time. Pamela Sargent

Time Science Space Worlds Lone Opera Devoid Science Fiction Historical Up Being Fiction Influences Holland Much Unique Usual Novel Novelist Floating Published Present Pulp

Historical fiction is actually good preparation for reading SF. Both the historical novelist and the science fiction writer are writing about worlds unlike our own. Pamela Sargent

Good Science Writing Reading Own Preparation Worlds Our Unlike About Both Writer Science Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Fiction Fiction Writer Novelist Actually

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it. Pamela Sargent

Business World Own Consider Our Unlike Possibilities Both Writer Dealing Historical Happened While Connected Novelist Actually Imagining

I didn't have a dream of being a press secretary, I had a dream of being a playwright; I had a dream of being a novelist and a poet. Pearl Cleage

Poet Playwright Secretary Press Press Secretary Dream Had Being Novelist

I couldn't have been the novelist I was without being the journalist I was. Pete Hamill

Journalist Without Been Being Novelist

Why should a novelist not also be a historian? To force unnatural divisions within the English language is to work against its capacious and accommodating nature. To expect a writer to produce only novels, or only histories, is equivalent to demanding from a composer that he or she write only string quartets or piano sonatas. Peter Ackroyd

Work Nature Language Demanding String Unnatural Composer Only Write Piano Writer He Divisions He Or She Also She Force Within Equivalent Historian Histories Expect Against Produce Should English English Language Novelist Novels Why

If I truly had the courage of my convictions, I would be a full-blown comic novelist. Petina Gappah

Courage Convictions Would Would-Be Had Comic Truly Novelist

Political novels are full of pitfalls, particularly for a novelist with strong political leanings. Phil Klay

Strong Political Particularly Pitfalls Full Novelist Novels

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