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Firsts Quotes

“I've written short stories in first person, but you have so much more control writing in third person. Third person, you know what everybody's thinking. First person is very limiting, and I could never sustain a first person novel before.”

Thinking Knows Writing Firsts Persons Stories Novel Written Thirds Short Story First Person Third Person Thinking First

Author:Tamora Pierce

“When I first thought of the idea for 'Sweet Valley High,' I loved the idea of high school as microcosm of the real world. And what I really liked was how it moved things on from 'Sleeping Beauty'-esque romance novels where the girl had to wait for the hero. This would be girl-driven, very different, I decided - and indeed it is.”

World Firsts Ideas Different Real Would Be School Romance Girl Waiting Sleep Novel Sweet Hero High School Decided Moved Driven Real World Valleys Romance Novel Microcosm Sleeping Beauty

Author:Francine Pascal

“I took the first James Kelman novel, 'The Bus Conductor Hines', home to my dad. I thought, 'My dad will like this; it's written in Scots.' But my dad said: 'I can't read that.' He was reading James Bond and John le Carre. That was part of what attracted me to crime - the idea of getting a wide audience.”

Firsts Said I Can Ideas Home Reading Novel Audience Written Crime Dad My Dad Wide Bus Conductor Scots

Author:Ian Rankin

“My first novel was turned down by half a dozen publishers. And even after having published five or six books, I wasn't making enough money to live on, and was beginning to think I'd have to give up the dream of being a full-time writer.”

Thinking Giving Firsts Book Enough Dream Half Novel Five Giving Up Six Dozen Publishers Turned Down

Author:Ian Rankin

“The summer I finished my first novel Ghana Must Go, I drove across west Africa: from Accra to Lomé to Cotonou to the deliciously named Ouagadougou.”

Firsts Novel Summer West Finished Ghana West Africa

Author:Taiye Selasi

“Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am.”

Thinking Firsts Wells Two Character Novel Neurotic

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for 'The Namesake,' I felt that it had to be a novel - it couldn't work as a story.”

Thinking Firsts Ideas Stories Felt Novel Namesake

Author:Jhumpa Lahiri

“Someone wrote a piece about Henry Green in The Partisan Review that was so intriguing that I got one of his novels, Loving, I believe, which was the first that came to attention in the United States.”

Firsts Believe States I Believe United Attention United States Novel Pieces Green Reviews Intriguing Partisans

Author:Terry Southern

“I started blogging in 2006 when I had sold my first novel but it had not yet been published, in those anxious months in between while I learned the whole process.”

Firsts Whole Process Novel Months Anxious Blogging

Author:Laini Taylor

“I was thinking about what I wanted to write next, after my first novel, and had decided that I wanted to write a story with a lot of strong female characters in it.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Character Stories Wanted Next Strong Novel Female Decided Female Characters Strong Female Characters Strong Female

Author:Joan D. Vinge

“I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.”

Writing Years Firsts Character Stories Would Be Imagination Fiction Novel Subjects Skills Research Useless Articles Reporters My Imagination Profile

Author:Amy Waldman

“The opening novel of the 'Bayou Trilogy' was the first one I finished.”

Firsts Novel Finished Opening Trilogies Bayou

Author:Daniel Woodrell

“The Novelist As Teacher”: “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past – with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.”

Ifs Firsts Long Would Be Past Night Acting Teach Novel Teacher Reader Satisfied Novelists Imperfection Behalf Savagery Long Nights

Book:Things Fall Apart: Authoritative Text, Contexts and Criticism

Source: Things Fall Apart: Authoritative Text, Contexts and Criticism

“When a novel has 200,000 words, then it is possible for the reader to experience 200,000 delights, and to turn back to the first page of the book and experience them all over again, perhaps more intensely.”

Firsts Book Turns Novel Reader Pages Delight

Author:Jane Smiley

“I know publishing now more as an author than with occasional peaks inside those elite offices than as an industry insider. It was difficult publishing a novel the first time around, while working behind the scenes, knowing all that has to happen to make a book a success and to still make the leap as an author.”

Knows Firsts Stills Book Happens Difficult Behinds Novel Knowing Industry Scene Office First Time Leap Elites Publishing Occasional Behind The Scenes Insiders Working Behind The Scenes

Author:Jennifer Gilmore

“My first two novels were set in the past, and that freed me up in a lot of ways; it allowed me to find my way into my story and my characters through research.”

Way Firsts Two Character Stories Past Novel Research My Way

Author:Jennifer Gilmore

“Brands are useful ways of short-handing practically anything - look at the way Tom Wolfe first used brand name lists to sharpen up a character and a situation. Look at the most brand-referenced novel, Bret Easton Ellis's 'Glamorama.”

Way Firsts Looks Character Used Names Situation Novel Lists Brands Toms Brand Names

Author:Peter York

“I had two projects that fell apart during preproduction. The first one was this movie that Judd Apatow and I had written about two guys following the Rolling Stones. It was going to be half concert film, half pseudo-documentary. It was Mick Jagger's idea.The other one was Simple Plan, based on a novel by Scott Smith. It's a great book - really stark, not a comedy - about a guy who finds $4 million in a plane crash and decides to keep it.”

“I read Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, which I think will subsequently be recognized as one of the first great novels of the 21st century.”

Thinking Firsts Novel Century Strange 21st Century Great Novels

Author:Lev Grossman

“In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust.”

Firsts Christ Novel Hero Faust

Book:Ein Granatapfelhaus

Source: Ein Granatapfelhaus

“From the moment I start a new novel, life's just one endless torture. The first few chapters may go fairly well and I may feel there's still a chance to prove my worth, but that feeling soon disappears and every day I feel less and less satisfied.”

Feels Firsts Wells May Stills Moments Feelings Chance Novel Prove Disappear Endless Satisfied Torture Just One Chapters Dissatisfaction

Author:Emile Zola

“. . . you [film critics] always overstress the value of images. You judge films in the first place by their visual impact instead of looking for content. This is a great disservice to the cinema. It is like judging a novel only by the quality of its prose. I was guilty of the same sin when I first started writing for the cinema. . . . Now I feel that only the literary mind can help the movies out of that cul de sac into which they have been driven by mere technicians and artificers.”

Feels Writing Mind Firsts Has Beens Helping Film Values Sin Quality Novel Judging Impact Mere Critics Driven Guilty Crafts Cinema Visuals Prose Technicians Disservice Film Critics

Author:Orson Welles

“I began visiting Lima's prisons back in 2007, when my first novel, 'Lost City Radio,' was published in Peru.”

Firsts Lost Cities Novel Prison Radio Visiting Peru

Author:Daniel Alarcon