“Much like the French (or like ourselves, their apes),Who with strange habit do disguise their shapes;Who loving novels, full of affectation,Receive the manners of each other nation.” NationsNovelStrangeHabitShapesMannersDisguiseApes Book:The Complete Works of Joshuah Sylvester: For the First Time Collected and Edited Source: The Complete Works of Joshuah Sylvester: For the First Time Collected and Edited
“Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding. From the viewpoint of the novel's wisdom, that fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.” HumansEvilUnderstandingViewsMoralNovelJudgingHabitMoralityJudgmentStupidityAbsenceReadinessImmoralityPerniciousMoral Judgment Author:Milan Kundera
“It's so easy to get into the same routine. A novel every two years; perhaps, improving technique. But I'm not interested in that. I'm interested in doing something fundamentally important--and therefore, it needs time. And what I've been doing, really, is avoiding this pressure to get into the habit of one novel a year. This is what is expected of novelists. And I have never been really too much concerned with doing what is expected of novelists, or writers, or artists. I want to do what I believe is important.” WantNeedsWritingYearsBelieveTwoImportantArtistI BelieveEasyNovelToo MuchHabitConcernedPressureExpectedTechniqueNovelistsTwo YearsRoutineNot InterestedImprovingAvoidingEasy To GetTime Of Need Author:Chinua Achebe
“A novel with a bad middle is a bad book. A bad ending is something I've just gotten in the habit of forgiving.” BookNovelMiddleHabitForgiving Author:Lev Grossman
“It cannot but be injurious to the human mind never to be called into effort: the habit of receiving pleasure without any exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity, and sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects of habitual novel-reading.” MindHumansMayReadingPleasureEffortNovelWorstEffectsHabitMereCuriosityExcitementHuman MindReceivingSensibilityHabitualExertion Book:The works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Source: The works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“I'm trying to break myself of that habit [of not writing out a first draft ] because I'm working on a couple novels and I know if I tried to write those books the way I wrote the stories it would take me years to finish.” IfsKnowsWayWritingTryingYearsFirstsBookStoriesBreakNovelCoupleHabitTake Me Author:Donald Ray Pollock
“I think I was also afraid of the novel. I write line by line, proceeding at snail's pace, rewriting as I go and paring the excess away. This is against all the best advice for writing long form prose, and I have tried over the years to break myself of the habit, but I can't bear to leave anything ungainly on the page and half the fun for me is that tinkering. So the length of a novel was a daunting prospect.” ThinkingWritingYearsLongI CanFormFunLinesHalfBreakNovelAdviceBearsHabitPagesProseLengthPaceExcessProceedingBest AdviceAll The BestRewritingSnailTinkering Author:Debra Dean
“Radio is the medium that most closely approximates the experience of reading. As a novelist, I find it very exciting to be able to reach people who might not ever pick up one of my books, either because they can't afford it (as is often the case in Latin America), or because they just don't have the habit of reading novels.” PeopleBookMightAbleAmericaReadingCasesNovelHabitPicksExcitingRadioMediumsNovelistsLatinLatin AmericaReading Novels Author:Daniel Alarcon