93 Novelists Quotes for You to Enjoy

I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination. I firmly believe this. Margaret Atwood

Believe Once Examination Student Simply Vehicle Firmly Also Private Exists Did Graduate Graduate Student Literature Victorian Social Novel Novelists Expression

I think I belong to America's last generation of novelists. Novelists will come one by one from now on, not in seeming families, and will perhaps write only one or two novels, and let it go at that. Kurt Vonnegut

Generation Will Think One Or Two Seeming Only Write Come Perhaps Go Families America Novelists Novels Now Belong Last Two

It's the duty of all novelists, all painters, all musicians, all people who try to make art move: to look for something they feel authentically, without paying attention to styles. Nathalie Sarraute

Art Musicians People Try Duty All People Something Attention Feel Look Make Without Styles Move Paying Who Painters Novelists

Somehow we must reintegrate the scientific with the popular and reconnect the future to the present. This is less a job for scientists, engineers, bureaucrats, and administrators and more a job for novelists, moviemakers, popularizers, and politicians. Newt Gingrich

Future Job Politicians Must Administrators Reconnect Somehow More Scientific Scientists Bureaucrats Engineers Less Popular Novelists Present

I love the idea of trying to do the work of old-fashioned novelists of plotting and of really making you curious about what's going to happen next and all that, but also trying to load it up with your weird thoughts and opinions. Adrian Tomine

During the 20th century, Chechnya was written about by local poets and novelists, as well as writers from Russia and Central Asia, but very little is available in English translation. Anthony Marra

Translation Local About Russia Poets Writers Written Chechnya Well Very Central Available Little Asia Century English Novelists

The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets. Christopher Morley

Bicycle Poets Vehicle Surely Always Should Novelists

Novelists in particular love to rhapsodize about the glory of the solitary mind; this is natural, because their job requires them to sit in a room by themselves for years on end. But for most of the rest of us, we think and remember socially. Clive Thompson

A good writer knows that if her style and perceptions are really cooking, she can bring anything off. It's okay, of course, for novelists to depict bland, average families living bland, average lives in bland, average towns. But it isn't okay when those novelists don't outshine their bland, average subjects. Darin Strauss

Good Cooking Style Living Those Okay Perceptions Bland Writer Good Writer Towns She Knows Course Off Subjects Families Depict Anything Average Really Novelists Lives Her Bring

All novelists I speak to about how they started usually say it was by pulling up their roots and going to live somewhere else. You see the shape of your life at a distance. Deborah Moggach

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present. Edmond de Goncourt

Past Tell Historians Story Novelists Present

There are a lot of historical novelists who do the research about the clothes and maybe even the eating utensils, but they're basically taking modern people and putting them in old drag - it's sort of the 'Gone With the Wind' approach. Edmund White

People Old Wind Clothes Gone Research Approach Eating About Taking Putting Sort Lot Historical Modern Maybe Them Gone With The Wind Who Even Novelists Basically Drag

For novelists, the imagination is everything. The trick is to guide one's imagination using research. I love using old maps. When I wrote my novels on London and New York, I found wonderful historical atlases. Paris has the most lavish maps of all. Edward Rutherfurd

If you need proof of how the oral relates to the written, consider that many great novelists, including Joyce and Hemingway, never submitted a piece of work without reading it aloud. Frank Delaney

A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction. Graham Greene

Truth Try Petty Distance More More And More Write Journalists Perhaps Trying Fiction Reason Novelists Keep Why

All novelists must form their personal pacts in some way with the slowness of their craft. There are some who demand of themselves a 'rate of production,' for whom it's a matter of pride to complete, say, a book every year. Graham Swift

I do have the sense that, although there may be no one way to write a novel, there are many novelists who are in fact part of some sort of larger literary community, whether in the form of a writing group or an MFA program, to name two of the more common forms. Hanya Yanagihara

Writing Sense Community Group Way Some One-Way More Fact Write No-One Part Name Sort Although May Common In Fact Form Literary Whether Forms Who Many Novel Novelists Larger Two Program

For novelists or musicians, if they really want to create something, they need to go downstairs and find a passage to get into the second basement. What I want to do is go down there, but still stay sane. Haruki Murakami

Musicians Down Find Stay Something Passage Still Go Get Want Create Really Sane Novelists Downstairs Basement Second Need

You could say that all novels are spy novels and all novelists are spy masters. Ian Mcewan

You Say Could Masters Spy Novelists Novels

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