“The best novels are those that are important without being like medicine; they have something to say, are expansive and intelligent but never forget to be entertaining and to have character and emotion at their centre.” ImportantCharacterForgetEmotionNovelIntelligentMedicineNever ForgetEntertainingCentre Author:Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“Have the courage to analyze great emotions to create characters who shall be lofty and true. The whole art of the analytical novel lies there.” ArtWholeCharacterLyingEmotionNovelLofty Author:Paul Bourget
“The sympathies of a well-adjusted person can easily be aroused by the plight of strangers. Indeed, the skillful writer of a novel, a play, or an opera can engage our emotions on behalf of people who are not only strangers to us, but who do not even exist! And a person whose emotions cannot be so aroused is not behaving normally.” PeopleWellsPersonsPlayEmotionNovelStrangerOperaHuman ConditionBehalfSkillfulPlight Author:John Derbyshire
“Cinema is a kind of pan-art. It can use, incorporate, engulf virtually any other art: the novel, poetry, theater, painting, sculpture, dance, music, architecture. Unlike opera, which is a (virtually) frozen art form, the cinema is and has been a fruitfully conservative medium of ideas and styles of emotions.” KindHas BeensArtIdeasUseFormEmotionNovelStylePaintingTheaterConservativeArchitectureMediumsCinemaMovieOperaFrozenSculptureDance Music Author:Susan Sontag
“When you write a book, you want to have fidelity to the character. Characters and their emotions guide the structure of the novel. The author is aware that there's a certain amount of information she/he has to provide in order to satisfy the reader, knowing that she/he has set something up that must be paid off, but this payment must be made while maintaining fidelity to the characters.” WantWritingMadeBookCharacterCertainOrderEmotionNovelKnowingInformationReaderAmountPaidStructureGuidesMaintainingPaymentFidelityPaid Off Author:David Bezmozgis
“When you write a book, you want to have fidelity to the character. Characters and their emotions guide the structure of the novel.” WantWritingBookCharacterEmotionNovelStructureGuidesFidelity Author:David Bezmozgis
“I am persuaded that not a novel in ten thousand is of any use to a child to fit him for life. The most are of use only to unfit him -- to blunt his senses and infect him with the writers' poor silly sentiments. Nine out of ten novelists deserve to be prosecuted under an Adulterated Emotions Act.” ChildrenUsePoorEmotionNovelFitThousandTenDeserveSillySensesNineNovelistsSentimentsBlunt Author:Storm Jameson
“My books are based on emotions, feelings, relationships. In these areas women are experts, so it's not strange that the main characters of my novels are females.” BookCharacterFeelingsEmotionNovelStrangeAreasFemaleExpertsMain CharactersEmotions Feelings Author:Isabel Allende
“I certainly incorporate facts into my fiction. I take the basic facts from the life of my subject and I pick and choose what to use to construct a really interesting novel. I don't let facts get in the way of my imagination and my exploration of the subject's emotions and relationships.” WayFactsUseImaginationInterestingEmotionFictionNovelSubjectsPicksExplorationConstructsMy ImaginationReally Interesting Author:Melanie Benjamin
“An image often propels the novel, gets it started. For me, it's an image that has a lot of emotion connected to it.” EmotionNovelConnected Author:Will Hobbs
“Sometimes when a character in a novel is difficult for me to enter, I sue something in myself or in my own life as a doorway into that character's mind and emotions.” MindSometimesCharacterDifficultMy OwnEmotionNovelMy Own LifeDoorways Author:Marge Piercy
“The novel may stimulate you to think. It may satisfy your aesthetic sense. It may arouse your moral emotions. But if it does not entertain you it is a bad novel.” IfsThinkingMayDoeEmotionMoralNovelAesthetic Author:W. Somerset Maugham
“What I think networks do so well are big, fun, accessible, invite everybody into the tent kinds of storytelling, akin to an early Spielberg movie or a Michael Crichton novel. That's not to say that there aren't scary parts 'cause there are, and that there aren't sexy parts and edgy parts, just like early Spielberg would have, but there's a lot of heart, a lot of emotion and complicated characters.” ThinkingWellsHeartKindCharacterBigsFunCausesEmotionNovelScarySexyComplicatedStorytellingInvitesTentsEdgy Author:Eric Kripke