“Great fiction shows us not how to conduct our behavior but how to feel. Eventually, it may show us how to face our feelings and face our actions and to have new inklings about what they mean. A good novel of any year can initiate us into our own new experience.” FeelsYearsMayMeanShowsFeelingsActionFacesFictionNovelBehaviorOur ActionsNew ExperiencesInitiate Book:On Writing Source: On Writing
“In the time it takes American literary titan William H. Gass to write a novel, other artists have been born, completed their life's work and died. That may be an exaggeration, but only a slight one.” WritingMayHas BeensArtistBornNovelDiedExaggerationTitans Author:Tony D'Souza
“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.” FeelsFirstsWellsMayStillsMomentsFeelingsChanceNovelProveDisappearEndlessSatisfiedTortureJust OneChaptersDissatisfaction Author:Emile Zola
“As it can be maintained that all the great advances have come from men under forty, so the history of the world shows that a very large proportion of the evils may be traced to the sexagenarians, nearly all the great mistakes politically and socially, all of the worst poems, most of the bad pictures, a majority of the bad novels and not a few of the bad sermons and speeches.” MenWorldMayShowsEvilMistakeNovelWorstSpeechMajorityProportionFortySermonsWorld HistoryGreat Mistakes Book:The Quotable Osler Source: The Quotable Osler
“Most of the complexity of the stories has developed as the stories came along (and may be a product of the principle that "nothing is what it seems"). I did start with some essential ambiguousness in the aliens' motivation and the questions this raises in human minds, which I consider to have been disregarded in Contact (novel and film). That, in part, may be what has delayed the writing of the fifth and sixth novelettes in the series.” WritingMindHumansMayHas BeensStoriesSeemsFilmMotivationPrinciplesNovelProductsEssentialsRaisesSeriesContactAliensComplexityHuman MindFifthAmbiguityDelayedDisregarded Author:James Gunn