Best novel & ifs Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 2

“The real origin of science fiction lay in the seventeeth-century novels of exploration in fabulous lands. Therefore Jules Verne's story of travel to the moon is not science fiction because they go by rocket but because of where they go. It would be as much science fiction if they went by rubber band.”

Ifs Real Stories Would Be Fiction Novel Land Century Moon Band Science Fiction Lays Exploration Fabulous Rockets Rubber Rubber Bands

Author:Philip K. Dick

“If I am a prolific writer and turn my hand, with what seems to some as indecent haste, from novels to screenplays to stage and radio plays, it is because there is so much to be said, so few of us to say it, and time runs out.”

Ifs Said Play Hands Seems Running Turns Novel Stage Radio Haste Screenplays Radio Plays

Author:Fay Weldon

“If Edgar Allan Poe were alive today, his agent would be constantly slapping him upside the head with tightly rolled copies of his brilliant short stories and novelettes, yelling, 'Full-length novels, you moron! Pay attention! What's the matter with you -- are you shooting heroin or something? Write for the market! No more of this midlength 'Fall of the House of Usher' crap”

“I give people If You Came Softly when they demand proof that novels for teens can be as good as the best novels for adults.”

People Ifs Giving Novel Demand Adults Proof Teens Justine

Author:Justine Larbalestier

“Never, if you can possibly help it, write a novel. It is, in the first place, a thoroughly unsocial act. It makes one obnoxious to one's family and to one's friends. One sits about for many weeks, months, even years, in the worst cases, in a state of stupefaction.”

Ifs Writing Years Firsts States Helping Cases Novel Week Worst Months Obnoxious

Author:Pearl S. Buck

“to write a novel in the heart of London is next to an impossibility. I feel as if I were nailing a flag to the top of a mast in a raging gale.”

Ifs Feels Writing Heart Next Novel London Rage Flags Impossibility Gale Masts

Book:A Change of Perspective

Source: A Change of Perspective

“I did ... learn an important distinction in graduate school: a speculation about who had syphilis when is gossip if it's about your friends, a plot element if it's about a character in a novel, and scholarship if it's about John Keats.”

Ifs Important Character School Novel Elements Distinction Plot Gossip Graduates Speculation Scholarship Graduate School Syphilis

Book:Second words: selected critical prose

Source: Second words: selected critical prose

“writers of novels are so busy being solitary that they haven't time to meet one another. But then, a writer learns nothing from a writer, conversationally. If a writer has anything witty, profound or quotable to say he doesn't say it. He's no fool. He writes it.”

Ifs Writing Novel Havens Fool Profound Busy Witty Solitary

Book:A Kind of Magic

Source: A Kind of Magic

“A problem with my novels is that they, from the start, have been infantile and incredibly childish. There are childishness, stupidity, lack of wisdom, fantasies. At the same time, that's where my creativity can be found. If I tried to control it and make it more mature, it wouldn't be good at all. It'd be uninteresting, without any vivacity.”

Ifs Has Beens Problem Found Creativity Fantasy Novel Stupidity Be Good Mature Infantile Childishness Vivacity

Author:Karl Ove Knausgard

“It has always seemed to me that if you could talk about your work in fully-formed phrases, you wouldn't write it. The writing is the statement, you see, and it seems to me that the poem or the story or the novel you write is the kind of metaphor you cast on life.”

Ifs Writing Kind Stories Seems Novel Casts Metaphor Statements Phrases

Author:Hortense Calisher

“When I am thickening my plots, I like to think 'What if ... What if ... ' Thus my imagination can move from the likely, which everyone can think of, to the unlikely-but-possible, my preferred plot.”

Ifs Thinking Moving Imagination Novel Mystery Plot What If Unlikely My Imagination Mystery Novels

Author:Patricia Highsmith

“Do you solemnly swear never to conceal a vital clue from the reader? Do you promise to observe seemly moderation in the use of gangs, conspiracies, Super Criminals and Lunatics and utterly and forever to forswear Mysterious Poisons unknown to science? Will you honor the King's English? ... If you fail to keep your promise, may other writers steal your plots and your pages swarm with misprints.”

Ifs May Use Novel Forever Failing Mystery Reader Kings Honor Promise Pages Criminals Stealing Mysterious Poison Plot Conspiracy Swear Moderation Clue Gang Swarms Mystery Novels

Author:Dorothy L. Sayers

“If the novel is dying, I see no chance that dismembering it will revive it.”

Ifs Chance Novel Dying Revive

Book:Parthian Words

Source: Parthian Words

“I picked up the Bible and read it from cover to cover one weekend - just as if it were a novel - very rapidly, and I've never gotten over the shock of it. The miracles, the inconsistencies, the improbabilities, the impossibilities, the wretched history, the sordid sex, the sadism in it - the whole thing shocked me profoundly.”

Ifs Whole Sex Novel Bible Miracle Shock Weekend Shocked Impossibility Wretched Inconsistency Sadism Improbability

Author:Madalyn Murray O'Hair

“Novel writing is a kind of private pleasure, even if nothing comes of it in worldly terms.”

Ifs Writing Kind Term Pleasure Novel Worldly Novel Writing

Author:Barbara Pym

“I have rarely read a more wonderful book than To Win Her Favor by Tamera Alexander. Rich with historical detail and fully developed characters, this novel held me spellbound until the last page. If you read one historical novel this year, make it To Win Her Favor. It will linger with you long after the last page.”

Ifs Years Long Book Character Lasts Winning Novel Rich Wonderful Pages Historical Details Favors Historical Novels

Author:Colleen Coble

“At last an authentic voice from Saudi Arabia. Al-Mohaimeed has written a remarkable, rhythmic, genuine novel. Wolves of the Crescent Moon throbs with sensuality and moral courage, as if it didn't take place in a society that denies the tick of the heart.”

Ifs Heart Lasts Voice Moral Novel Written Moon Deny Genuine Sensuality Remarkable Als Arabia Saudi Arabia Saudis Tick Moral Courage Crescent Crescent Moon

Author:Hanan al-Shaykh

“Whether you look at Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, or Buddhism, wherever a distinction of sex is made, it is to the advantage of men. If you think of religions as if they were novels, the authors are men, and so are the major characters.”

Ifs Thinking Men Looks Made Character Sex Christianity Novel Buddhism Majors Advantage Islam Made It Distinction Hinduism Judaism

Author:Katha Pollitt

“This is, if not a lifetime process, it's awfully close to it. The writer broadens, becomes deeper, becomes more observant, becomes more tempered, becomes much wiser over a period time passing. It is not something that is injected into him by a needle. It is not something that comes on a wave of flashing, explosive light one night and say, 'Huzzah! Eureka! I've got it!' and then proceeds to write the great American novel in eleven days. It doesn't work that way. It's a long, tedious, tough, frustrating process, but never, ever be put aside by the fact that it's hard.”

“I feel like they are two different things, and when I write books, they're just books. If they can be movies that's okay. But I would write a novel that couldn't be a film.”

Ifs Feels Writing Two Book Different Film Novel Okay Different Things Two Different Things

Author:Augusten Burroughs

“I'm not writing novels, the screenplays are my novels, so I'm gonna write it the best that I can. If the movie never gets made, it'd almost be okay because I did it. It's there on the page.”

Ifs Writing Made I Can Novel Pages Okay Made It Screenplays

Author:Quentin Tarantino

“The Anglo-American tradition is much more linear than the European tradition. If you think about writers like Borges, Calvino, Perec or Marquez, they're not bound in the same sort of way. They don't come out of the classic 19th-century novel, which is where all the problems start. 19th-century novels are fabulous and we should all read them, but we shouldn't write them.”

Ifs Thinking Way Should Writing Problem Novel Century Tradition Bounds Classic Fabulous 19th Century Linear Borges American Tradition Marquez

Author:Jeanette Winterson

“Books are great for if you want to work on the craft of writing for yourself, or, you know, to write novels or indie films, stuff like that.”

Ifs Knows Want Writing Book Film Stuff Novel Crafts Indie Films Writing For Yourself

Author:Thomas Lennon

“Well into the 19th century there were pronouncements from just about every branch of science and medicine that reading, writing, and thinking were dangerous for women. Articles in the Lancet declared that women's brains would burst and their uteruses atrophy if they engaged in any form of rigorous thinking. The famous physician J.D. Kellogg insisted that novel reading was the greatest cause of uterine disease among young women and urged parents to protect their daughters from the dreaded consequences of print.”

“Every year the literary press praises dozens if not hundreds of novels to the skies, asserting explicitly or implicitly that these books will probably not be suffering water damage in the basements of their authors' houses 20 years from now. But historically, anyway, that's not the way the novelistic ecology works.”

Ifs Way Years Book Suffering House Water Novel Sky Praise Presses Damage Dozen Ecology Basements

Author:Lev Grossman

“The highest praise a writer can give another is to say he wishes he had written his book. I wish I had written Forty Words for Sorrow. Giles Blunt has a tremendous talent. If you miss Forty Words for Sorrow, you'll miss one of best novels of 2001.”

Ifs Giving Book Wish Novel Written Talent Missing Sorrow Highest Praise Forty Blunt

Author:Tony Hillerman

“If you enjoy math and you write novels, it's very rare that you'll get a chance to put your math into a novel. I leapt at the chance.”

Ifs Writing Enjoy Chance Novel Math

Author:Mark Haddon

“Sometimes I ask myself if writing novels is even respectable.”

Ifs Writing Sometimes Asks Novel Respectable

Author:Lorrie Moore

“The writing in Mission to Paris, sentence after sentence, page after page, is dazzling. If you are a John le Carr fan, this is definitely a novel for you.”

Ifs Writing Novel Fans Pages Missions Sentences Paris Dazzling

Author:James Patterson

“Mathematics may be the only exception in the sciences that leaves no room for skepicism. But, if mathematical results are exact as no empirical law can ever be, philosophers have discovered that they are not absolutely novel - instead, they are tautological.”

Ifs May Law Rooms Results Novel Mathematics Philosopher Mathematical Exception

Author:Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza

“The worst kind of novel is one that blames other people for the racial problem in order to make the reader feel good about himself. As if it's only rich white people or Republicans or conservatives who have this disease.”

People Ifs Feels Kind Problem Order White Novel Rich Worst Reader Republican Disease Blame Feel Good

Author:George Pelecanos

“Playing Destroyo, who was sort of a 'Silence Of The Lambs' type character, I'd say I was wearing about 50 pounds of rubber and foam rubber and makeup. But I had no idea who The Tick was. I'm not a big graphic-novel guy. I don't even know if 'The Tick' was a graphic novel!”

Ifs Knows Ideas Character Bigs Guy Silence Novel Type No Idea Makeup Pounds Graphic Lambs Rubber Tick Foam Graphic Novels

Author:Kurt Fuller

“I enjoy the research element. There are so many stories from the past that interest me, that I want to learn more about, just as an interested person. And if I'm going to learn, if I'm going to research, it's probably going to lead me to writing a novel.”

Ifs Want Writing Persons Stories Past Enjoy Interest Novel Elements Research Leading Me

Author:John Boyne

“What I found interesting writing a screenplay as opposed to writing a novel is not the obvious thing, which is having to pare everything down and find the kind of essence, the skeleton if you like, which can then be fleshed out by performance and cinematography.”

Ifs Writing Kind Found Interesting Novel Essence Performances Down And Obvious Screenplays Skeletons Cinematography Obvious Things

Author:Salman Rushdie

“It may sound very strange, but I love the freedom that writing a novel gives me. It is an unhindered experience. If I come after a bad day, I can decide that my protagonist will die on page 100 of my novel in a 350-page story.”

Ifs Giving Writing May I Can Stories Dies Sound Novel Strange Pages Give Me Bad Day Protagonists

Author:Ashwin Sanghi

“Eat good dinners and drink good wine; read good novels if you have the leisure and see good plays; fall in love, if there is no reason why you should not fall in love; but do not pore over influenza statistics.”

Ifs Should Reason Play Fall Novel Drink Wine Falling In Love Dinner Reason Why No Reason Statistics Leisure Good Wine Influenza

Author:Jerome K. Jerome

“This Is Not a Novel memorializes the treasures and detritus of one man's singularly cultured mind. (...) If you don't know Writer's work at all, try This Is Not a Novel. There may be some doubt about exactly what kind of book it is, but not that it's altogether wonderful.”

Ifs Knows Men Trying Mind Kind May Book Novel Doubt Wonderful Treasure One Man

Author:Michael Dirda

“I respond very well to rules. If there are certain parameters it's much easier to do something really good. Especially when readers know what those are. They know what to expect and then you have to wrong-foot them. That is the trick of crime fiction. And readers come to crime and graphic novels wanting to be entertained, or disgusted.”

Ifs Knows Wells Certain Fiction Novel Feet Crime Reader Easier Tricks Graphic Crime Fiction Parameters Disgusted Graphic Novels

Author:Denise Mina

“Sci-Fi is the genre that explored both possibilities: the end of our existential crisis and the end of our existence. My novel, The 5th Wave, explores the latter scenario, because, frankly, I believe it represents the likeliest outcome of an extraterrestrial encounter. In short, if they're out there, we better hope they never find us.”

Ifs Believe Ends I Believe Existence Novel Possibility Crisis Wave Genre Outcomes Encounters Latter Sci Fi Existential Scenarios Existential Crisis Extraterrestrial 5th Wave

Author:Rick Yancey

“If it takes you seven years to write each novel, you need a patron. And I would rather have my corporate self as my patron than any arts council or bestower of grants.”

Ifs Needs Writing Years Art Self Novel Seven Corporate Grants Council Seven Years Patron

Author:Mohsin Hamid

“If Im in the bookstore, and I see a 700-page novel, my first thought is, Ooh, how could you cut this down to size and make a movie out of it?”

Ifs Firsts Novel Cutting Pages Size Bookstores

Author:Brian Helgeland

“Guy Gavriel Kays Tigana is, in my opinion, one of the best, if not the best fantasy novel ever written. Its beautifully written, the characters are unforgettable, the worldbuilding is exquisite.”

Ifs Character Guy Opinion Fantasy Novel Written Exquisite Unforgettable Fantasy Novels

Author:David B. Coe

“The wildest ride in modern crime novel exoticum. A novel so steeped in milieu that it feels as if you've blasted to mars in the grip of a demon who won't let you go. Read this book, savor the language-it's the last-and the most compelling word in thrillers.”

Ifs Feels Book Lasts Language Novel Modern Crime Demon Compelling Mars Thrillers Letting You Go Milieu Crime Novels

Author:James Ellroy

“I think Melbourne is by far and away the most interesting place in Australia, and I thought if I ever wrote a novel or crime novel of any kind, I had to set it here.”

Ifs Thinking Kind Interesting Novel Crime Australia Most Interesting Melbourne Interesting Places Crime Novels

Author:Peter Temple

“If the literary category of 'mordant fable' exists at all, it may be because Brock Clarke invented it. The Happiest People in the World is everything we fans have come to love from a Clarke novel: playful and deliriously skewed, and somehow balancing between genuinely great-hearted and gloriously weird.”

People Ifs World May Novel Fans Categories Hearted Fables

Author:Lauren Groff

“I still find it absurdly difficult to concentrate on a novel if there's a phone or computer to hand; I have taken to locking them outside the room like noisy pets.”

Ifs Stills Hands Difficult Rooms Novel Taken Computer Phones Pet Noisy

Author:David Nicholls

“I read all the time. Sometimes I get asked if I've thought about writing a novel.”

Ifs Writing Sometimes Novel

Author:Noah Baumbach

“And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.”

Ifs Writing Littles Philosophy Care Reading Sex Fiction Novel Violence Clothes Notes Guilty Description Plot Advancement Cliffs Advancing Feasting Reading Fiction

Author:George R. R. Martin

“In this world that we live in we have originality in literature, but we also have TV and movies. I write love stories. I could never write a love story based on the Titanic - that was never a novel. If I see an idea that's been done in film, I try to avoid that.”

Ifs World Writing Trying Ideas Done Stories Film Literature Novel This World Tvs Love Story Originality

Author:Nicholas Sparks

“I'm skeptical that the novel will be "reinvented." If you start thinking about a medical textbook or something, then, yes, I think that's ripe for reinvention. You can imagine animations of a beating heart. But I think the novel will thrive in its current form. That doesn't mean that there won't be new narrative inventions as well. But I don't think they'll displace the novel.”

Ifs Thinking Wells Heart Mean Form Novel Imagine Currents Medical Invention Narrative Thrive Animation Skeptical Ripe Textbooks Reinvention

Author:Jeff Bezos

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