“People think that because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they cannot include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that.” PeopleThinkingCan DoCasesNovelHappenedCircumstancesMemoirReverseBiographies Book:Hearing Secret Harmonies: Book 12 of A Dance to the Music of Time Source: Hearing Secret Harmonies: Book 12 of A Dance to the Music of Time
“The Brightwood Stillness is a novel I could not put down. On the surface, it is the lives of normal people in trying circumstances. Deeper, it is an uncannily perceptive exploration of male psychology… Pomeroy is a brave new voice capable of taking us beyond the clichés of war and its aftermath and into the secret heart of every man. This is simply the best novel I’ve read in a long time.” PeopleMenTryingHeartLongWarVoiceSecretNovelPsychologyCircumstancesNormalCapableLong TimeBraveMalesDeeperSurfaceEvery ManExplorationStillnessAftermathBest Novel Author:Andrew X. Pham
“It seems to me that life's circumstances, being ephemeral, teach us less about durable truths than the fictions based on those truths; and that the best lessons of delicacy and self-respect are to be found in novels where the feelings are so naturally portrayed that you fancy you are witnessing real life as you read.” RealSelfFeelingsSeemsFoundFictionTeachNovelCircumstancesLessonsReal LifeFancySelf RespectEphemeralDelicacy Author:Madame de Stael
“I've come to realize that however blue my circumstances, if after finishing a chapter of a Dickens novel I feel a miss-my-stop-on-the-train sort of compulsion to read on, then everything is probably going to be just fine.” IfsFeelsRealizingNovelMissingFineCircumstancesBlueTrainChaptersCompulsionFinishingDickens Book:Rules of Civility Source: Rules of Civility
“Nicole Baart has written a novel that satisfies on every level. Sleeping In Eden is a compelling mystery, a tragic love story, a perceptive consideration of the callous whim of circumstance and, perhaps most important, a beautiful piece of prose. I guarantee this is a book that will haunt you long after you've turned the last page.” LongImportantBookStoriesLastsBeautifulSleepLevelsNovelPiecesWrittenMysteryCircumstancesPagesLove StoryProseGuaranteesConsiderationTragicCompellingEdenWhimSleeping InCallousNicoleThis Is A Book Author:William Kent Krueger
“NaNo[ National Novel Writing Month] is an awesome opportunity to stretch your writing muscles and gives you permission to write in a way you probably wouldn't do in a normal circumstance.” WayGivingWritingOpportunityNovelMonthsCircumstancesNormalMusclesPermissionNovel WritingNano Author:Michelle J. Howard
“I am not a psychological novelist, and I try very hard not to allow the reader to see the plight or circumstances of the characters as individual psychological plights. That's my preference; still, a lot of people do read my novels as psychological studies, and they're right to read them that way too, if that's what they mean to them.” PeopleIfsWayTryingMeanStillsHardCharacterIndividualNovelStudyReaderCircumstancesPsychologicalNovelistsPreferencePlight Author:Alix Kates Shulman
“The English tradition offers the great tapestry novel, where you have the emotional aspect of a detective's personal life, the circumstances of the crime and, most important, the atmosphere of the English countryside that functions as another character.” ImportantCharacterNovelCrimeEmotionalCircumstancesOffersAspectTraditionFunctionAtmospherePersonal LifeDetectivesCountrysideTapestryTapestry Of LifeEnglish Countryside Author:Elizabeth George
“I would argue, for perspective's sake, that the arc of a really literary work is precisely that it both intensely reflects, and simultaneously transcends the conditions of its making. I would say that is the difference between literature and other kinds of writing. That is what the literary is - it ultimately doesn't matter what his circumstances were. And the thing that you were just saying about being sympathetic to Brontë and the fact that she could only write what she wrote when she wrote it... that's true. But look at that novel, which means so much to so many people.” PeopleWritingKindMeanLiteratureNovelCircumstancesArguingSympatheticJust Saying Author:Daniel Mendelsohn
“I've always believed that poetry must speak of realities as least as complicated as those spoken of in prose. I've read books of poems, even single poems, which are, for me, at least the equivalent of a short story or a novel. Martin Amis, in an interview with Saul Bellow in the early eighties, quotes Bellow asking, "Why not address 'the mysterious circumstance of being', say what it's like to be alive at this time, on this planet?" This has been and still is my ambition.” BookRealitySpeakNovelCircumstancesAmbitionComplicatedMysteriousProseShort StoryAlways BelieveMy Ambition Author:Lawrence Joseph
“Great fiction has been written out of the very darkest circumstances of our narco violence, and nothing written in either fiction or nonfiction has penetrated that darkness so memorably - you can even say beautifully, a relentless riveting forensic dark beauty that some readers in fact find themselves unable to endure - as Roberto Bolaño's 2666. Especially in "The Part about the Crimes." But here's the thing: nobody would call 2666 a "narco novel."” DarkDarknessNovelViolenceCrimeCircumstancesEndureRelentless Author:Francisco Goldman
“My novels are very much the same, as I think many people's novels are. No matter how hard I try to do otherwise, the books always wind up being "a group of strangers are thrown together by circumstance and form a society."” ThinkingTryingBookTogetherNovelCircumstancesStranger Author:Ann Patchett
“Because I worked as a newspaper reporter for about 14 years before attempting my first novel, I learned to write under almost any circumstances- by candle light, in longhand, in African villages where there was no power, under shelling in Kurdistan.” WritingYearsFirstsLightNovelCircumstancesNewspapersVillageCandleReportersAttemptingNewspaper ReportersCandle Lights Author:Geraldine Brooks
“Love is rather impotent and pitiful: My father must have told me a million times how much he loved me, but that emotion - assuming it was even real - hardly had the strength to counter the many other acts of wrong he committed against me. Contrary to romance novels and the love-conquers-all mentality that even those of us who grow up in an era of divorce are - in response to some atavistic instinct - still raised to believe, love is always a product and a victim of circumstances. It is fragile and small.” BelieveStillsRealRomanceFatherGrowsLove IsEmotionMillionsNovelGrowing UpProductsCircumstancesVictimAssumingInstinctResponseRaisedCommittedDivorceContraryConquerErasFragileMentalityRomance NovelPitifulBelieve In LoveLove Conquers AllVictims Of Circumstance Author:Elizabeth Wurtzel