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Ends Quotes

“I think it's harder than ever to be an artist. I think that you end up, especially as a middle-aged person, you pay such big consequences for saying, 'I'm just going to devote my life to making art,' or 'I'm going to devote my life to writing novels.' You end up with no resources.”

Thinking Writing Persons Art Ends Bigs Artist Pay Novel Middle Consequence Resources Harder Middle Aged

Author:Dana Spiotta

“I think predictability is built into any good novel in some way - you begin reading Anna Karenina and you know pretty much what's going to happen at the end. But that doesn't mean you know what's going to happen in the middle. For me, it's that sense of what happens in the middle that's important.”

Thinking Knows Way Mean Important Ends Happens Reading Novel Middle Built Anna Predictability

Author:Scarlett Thomas

“It has long been a tradition among novel writers that a book must end by everybody getting just what they wanted, or if the conventional happy ending was impossible, then it must be a tragedy in which one or both should die. In real life very few of us get what we want, our tragedies don't kill us, but we go on living them year after year, carrying them with us like a scar on an old wound.”

Ifs Want Should Writing Years Long Book Real Ends Wanted Dies Novel Impossible Goes On Tradition Tragedy Wounds Real Life Scar Conventional Happy Endings Old Wounds

Author:Willa Cather

“I should love to do a novel, about one abnormal character seeing present-day life, very ordinary life, yet arresting through it, abnormality, until at the end the reader sees, and with little reluctance, that he is not abnormal at all, and that the main character might as well be himself.”

Should Wells Littles Ends Character Might Novel Seeing Reader Ordinary Abnormal Present Day Ordinary Life Day Life Reluctance Main Characters Abnormality Arresting

Author:Patricia Highsmith

“The latest gorgeous entry in the Belknap Press' growing library of annotated Jane Austen novels arrives, this time the mighty Emma under the exactingly careful guidance of Bharat Tandon of the University of East Anglia. Belknap has once again done its end of the job superbly: the book is a physical treat-luxuriantly over-sized, heavy with quality paper and solid binding, decked out in a beautiful cover and dozens of well-chosen illustrations throughout. This is one of the prettiest Jane Austen volumes available in bookstoresthis season.”

“How can we expect novelists to be moral, when their trade forces them to treat every end they meet as no more than an imperfect means to a novel?”

Mean Ends Force Moral Novel Treats Trade Novelists Imperfect

Book:Pictures from an Institution: A Comedy

Source: Pictures from an Institution: A Comedy

“I don't see how anybody starts a novel without knowing how it's going to end. I usually make detailed outlines: how many chapters it will be and so forth.”

Ends Novel Knowing Chapters Outlines

Author:John Barth

“In the end, for me, the sole single goal is to write the best novel that I can. Whether or not it gets made or gets purchased.”

Writing Made I Can Ends Goal Novel Sole Best Novel

Author:Nicholas Sparks

“The end of a novel, like the end of a children's dinner-party, must be made up of sweetmeats and sugar-plums.”

Children Made Ends Party Novel Dinner Sugar Dinner Party Plums

Book:Anthony Trollope: The Chronicles of Barsetshire & The Palliser Novels (Unabridged): The Warden + The Barchester Towers + Doctor Thorne + Framley Parsonage + The Small House at Allington + The Last Chronicle of Barset + Can You Forgive Her? + The Prime Minister + Eustace Diamonds...

Source: Anthony Trollope: The Chronicles of Barsetshire & The Palliser Novels (Unabridged): The Warden + The Barchester Towers + Doctor Thorne + Framley Parsonage + The Small House at Allington + The Last Chronicle of Barset + Can You Forgive Her? + The Prime Minister + Eustace Diamonds...

“The truth is, everything we know about America, everything Americans come to know about being American, isn't from the news. I live there. We don't go home at the end of the day and think, "Well, I really know who I am now because the Wall Street Journal says that the Stock Exchange closed at this many points." What we know about how to be who we are comes from stories. It comes from the novels, the movies, the fashion magazines. It comes from popular culture.”

“When you're reading a novel, I think the reason you care about how any given plot turns out is that you take it as a data point in the big story of how the world works. Does such-and-such a kind of guy get the girl in the end? Does adultery ever bring happiness? How do winners become winners?”

Thinking World Kind Doe Book Ends Reason Stories Bigs Care Guy Turns Girl Reading Given Novel Data Winner Plot Adultery

Author:Elif Batuman

“If life were a novel, then dead would mark the end of the first chapter.”

Ifs Firsts Ends Novel Mark Chapters

Author:Kelly Nelson

“Writing the middle of a novel is a lot like driving through Texas. You think it's never going to end, and the scenery looks the same.”

Thinking Writing Looks Ends Novel Middle Driving Texas Scenery

Book:How to Write Killer Fiction: The Funhouse of Mystery & the Roller Coaster of Suspense

Source: How to Write Killer Fiction: The Funhouse of Mystery & the Roller Coaster of Suspense