29 Tolstoy Quotes for You to Enjoy

It may be that Tolstoy and Virginia Woolf were sitting around fretting about their Amazon reviews or their pre-pub whatever, but I kind of doubt it. I don't think that's how the work probably got made. Garth Risk Hallberg

Everyone writes in Tolstoy's shadow, whether one feels oneself to be Tolstoyan or not. A. N. Wilson

Everyone Shadow Oneself Writes Feels Whether Tolstoy

Historical fiction was not - and is not - meant to supplant literature from the period it describes. As a veteran of the Crimea, Tolstoy wrote 'War and Peace' to match his own internal sense of the truth of the Napoleonic wars, to dramatize what he felt literature from that period had failed to describe. Alexander Chee

Truth War Peace Veteran Own Sense Had He Failed Period Wrote Felt Match His Historical Historical Fiction Fiction Literature Meant Internal Wars Describe Tolstoy

In the summer of 1866, as Leo Tolstoy prepared for his serialized novel 'War and Peace' to be published as a single volume, he wrote to illustrator Mikhail Bashilov, hoping to commission drawings for the new edition of the novel, which he referred to by its original title,1805. Alexander Chee

Chechnya forms the bookends to Tolstoy's career. He began writing his first novel, 'Childhood,' while in Starogladovskaya in Northern Chechnya, and his final novel, 'Hadji Murad,' is set in the Russo-Chechen War of the 19th century. Anthony Marra

War Writing First Final He Chechnya His Began Northern Childhood While Forms Century Novel Tolstoy Career Set

Watergate is an immensely complicated scandal with a cast of characters as varied as a Tolstoy novel. Bob Woodward

Watergate Complicated Immensely Characters Scandal Varied Cast Novel Tolstoy

I had amazing intellectual privilege as a kid. My mom taught me to read when I was two or three. When I was five, I read and wrote well enough to do my nine-year older brother's homework in exchange for chocolate or cigarettes. By the time I was 10, I was reading Orwell, Tolstoy's 'War and Peace,' and the Koran. I was reading comic books, too. Chris Abani

War Time Mom Me Peace Amazing Three Reading Older Homework Too Enough Cigarettes Books Kid Brother Exchange Had Wrote Well Well Enough Read Comic Koran Comic Books Intellectual Five Privilege Taught Chocolate Tolstoy Orwell Two By The Time

The novel at its nineteenth-century pinnacle was a Judaized novel: George Eliot and Dickens and Tolstoy were all touched by the Jewish covenant: they wrote of conduct and of the consequences of conduct: they were concerned with a society of will and commandment. Cynthia Ozick

Will Society Consequences Touched Wrote Concerned Covenant George Were Commandment Pinnacle Dickens Conduct Novel Tolstoy Jewish

Take Jonathan Franzen's work: it's just old wine in new bottles. They say he's the Tolstoy of the digital age, but there can only be a Tolstoy of the Tolstoyan age. David Shields

Work Age Old Digital Wine Digital Age Say Only Take Bottles He Jonathan New Just Old Wine Tolstoy They Say

Tolstoy didn't know about steampunk or cyborgs, but he did know about the nightmarishness of steam power, unruly machines, and the creepy half-human status of the Russian peasant classes. In 'Anna Karenina,' nineteenth-century life itself is a relentless, relentlessly modern machine, flattening those who oppose it. Elif Batuman

Life Power Oppose Machine Those Machines Relentless Relentlessly Status Classes About Russian Steam Unruly He Anna Know Itself Did Modern Who Tolstoy Peasant Creepy

I've gained a lot from James Joyce, Tolstoy, Chekhov and R. K. Narayan. While writing, I try to see if the story is going to radiate spokes. Their literature has always done that and gifted me beautiful things. Jhumpa Lahiri

This is not Tolstoy. I don't want to know what critics and professors think of what I'm writing. It might hurt my feelings. Lisa Kleypas

Hurt Writing Feelings Think Critics Know Want Might Tolstoy Professors

I survived many a youth hostel bunk room reading Tolstoy by flashlight. Maria Semple

Youth Reading Hostel Bunk Survived Room Many Tolstoy

A great thing is happening on cable TV. You see characters change in stories over years, like in Tolstoy. That's a whole, thrilling new form that I really enjoy. They are Tolstoy-an in their endless character development and narrative changes... a show like 'Breaking Bad' is astonishing. Mike Nichols

Great Character You Change Enjoy Changes Astonishing Character Development Characters TV Bad See Thrilling Cable Cable TV Development Over New Like Great Thing Narrative Years Endless Form Stories Happening Breaking Breaking Bad Really Show Whole Tolstoy Thing

I am sometimes asked to name my favourite books. The list changes, depending on my mood, the year, tricks played by memory. I might mention novels by Nabokov and Calvino and Tolkien on one occasion, by Fitzgerald and Baldwin and E.B. White on another. Camus often features, as do Tolstoy, Borges, Morrison and Manto. Mohsin Hamid

Memory Sometimes Year White Changes Books Mood Tricks Favourite Mention Features Name Occasion Another Am Fitzgerald List Often Depending Might Asked Tolkien Tolstoy Novels Played

It's a different thing to write a love story now than in the time of Jane Austen, Eliot, or Tolstoy. One of the problems is that once divorce is possible, once break-ups are possible, it can all become a little less momentous. Mona Simpson

Love Time Problems Become Love Story Once Possible One Of The Problems Write Divorce Austen Than Different Story Jane Jane Austen Little Less Momentous Tolstoy Different Thing Now Thing

Every drama requires a cast. The cast may be so huge, as in Leo Tolstoy's 'Anna Karenina,' that the author or editor provides a list of characters to keep them straight. Or it may be an intimate cast of two. Nancy Kress

Every Drama Intimate Characters Cast Anna Editor Provides Huge Author List May Straight Them Leo Requires Tolstoy Keep Two

When I bought a collection of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, I returned home with a bright enthusiasm to begin the long march into the Russian soul. Though I've failed to read either man to completion, they both helped me to imagine that my fictional South Carolina was as vast a literary acreage as their Russia. Pat Conroy

Home Me Man Soul Enthusiasm Long Carolina Completion Though Collection Russia Russian Both Vast Bought Failed Read Returned South South Carolina Begin Literary Fictional Either Helped Tolstoy Bright March Imagine

Everybody is a regionalist. Tolstoy is a regionalist - one is where one lives, where one writes. Paul Horgan

Everybody Writes Where Tolstoy Lives

One of the greatest things about writing as a profession is that the words of Tolstoy, Chesterton and Dostoyevsky have lived for a hundred years and are just as powerful today. Their words have changed me just as much as the people I actually met. Philip Yancey

Tolstoy may be right about happy and unhappy families, but in ballet, it works the opposite way: All good ballets are different from each other and all bad ones are alike, at least in one crucial respect - they're all empty. Robert Gottlieb

I don't believe that my first name is Leo or that my last name is Tolstoy. I'm a storyteller. Robert Ludlum

First Believe Name First Name Storyteller Leo Tolstoy Last

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