Best novel & novel-writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.”

Way Writing Littles Lying Bits Novel Deception Novel Writing

“A lot of novelists start late-Conrad, Pirandello, even Mark Twain. When you're young, chess is all right, and music and poetry. But novel-writing is something else. It has to be learned, but it can't be taught. This bunkum and stinkum of college creative writing courses! The academics don't know that the only thing you can do for someone who wants to write is to buy him a typewriter.”

Knows Want Writing Young Courses Can Do Novel Creative Taught College Late Mark Chess Novelists Creative Writing Typewriters Novel Writing

Author:James M. Cain

“The only difficulty is to know what bits to choose and what to leave out. Novel-writing is not creation, it is selection.”

Knows Writing Bits Novel Creation Difficulty Selection Novel Writing

Book:Letters to a Friend

Source: Letters to a Friend

“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

“NaNo[ National Novel Writing Month] is an awesome opportunity to stretch your writing muscles and gives you permission to write in a way you probably wouldn't do in a normal circumstance.”

Way Giving Writing Opportunity Novel Months Circumstances Normal Muscles Permission Novel Writing Nano

Author:Michelle J. Howard

“Novel writing is solitary work.”

Writing Novel Solitary Novel Writing

Book:Discontent and its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London

Source: Discontent and its Civilizations: Dispatches from Lahore, New York, and London

“Novel writing is the slowest art form in the world. It is not a sprint. It is not even a marathon. It is a series of marathons that stretch over and over across a continent.”

World Writing Art Form Novel Series Continents Marathon Novel Writing Sprint

Author:Mohsin Hamid

“If I'm writing a novel, I'll probably get up in the morning, do email, perhaps blog, deal with emergencies, and then be off novel-writing around 1.00pm and stop around 6.00pm. And I'll be writing in longhand, a safe distance from my computer. If I'm not writing a novel, there is no schedule, and scripts and introductions and whatnot can find themselves being written at any time and on anything.”

Ifs Writing Deals Morning Novel Written Safe Computer Distance Scripts Get Up Schedules Email Emergencies Introduction Blogs Novel Writing

Author:Neil Gaiman

“Novel writing, to me, is all about language: choosing your words, finding the characters within the words and just really agonizing over every word. It's really crafting this whole piece from nothing.”

Writing Whole Character Language Novel Pieces Findings Novel Writing Agonizing

Author:Jonathan Tropper

“There isn't, even now, a great tradition of novel-writing in Afghanistan. Most of the literature is in the form of poetry.”

Writing Form Literature Novel Tradition Afghanistan Novel Writing

Author:Khaled Hosseini

“When I am writing fiction, I believe I am much better organized, more methodical - one has to be when writing a novel. Writing poetry is a state of free float.”

Writing Believe States I Believe Fiction Novel Organized Poetry Is Floats Novel Writing Writing Fiction Writing Poetry Methodical

Book:Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood

Source: Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood

“Novel-writing is a highly skilled and laborious trade. One does not just sit behind a screen jotting down other people's conversation. One has for one's raw material every single thing one has ever seen or heard or felt, and one has to go over that vast, smoldering rubbish-heap of experience, half stifled by fumes and dust, scraping and delving until one finds a few discarded valuables. Then one has to assemble these tarnished and dented fragments, polish them, set them in order, and try to make a coherent and significant arrangement of them.”

“A man who is not born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality, and he trusts he can plunge those people into those incidents with interesting results.”

Source: The Complete Works of Mark Twain: All 13 Novels, Short Stories, Poetry and Essays

“The recent extraordinary discovery in Photography, as applied in the operations of the mind, has reduced the art of novel-writing to the merest mechanical labour.”

Writing Mind Art Novel Photography Discovery Extraordinary Operations Labour Novel Writing

Book:Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Other Tales

Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Other Tales

“Updike worked this way, and I just kinda borrowed it from him. So the memoir will be relief from novel writing for a moment.”

Way Writing Moments Novel Memoir Relief Borrowed Novel Writing

Author:Rick Moody

“I've been asked which of the other arts novel-writing is most like, and I have come to believe it is acting. Of course, in terms of pattern it can be like music, in terms of structure it can be like painting, but the job to me is most like acting.”

Writing Believe Art Jobs Courses Term Acting Novel Painting Structure Patterns Novel Writing

Author:Andrew O'Hagan

“I wish every American explored the importance of novel writing, identity, honesty, character and place in fresh-ass ways.”

Way Writing Character Wish Novel Honesty Identity Importance Ass Novel Writing

Author:Kiese Laymon

“I never really had novel-writing instruction like people do in MFA programs.”

People Writing Novel Program Instruction Novel Writing

Author:Jess Row

“Novel-writing is a settling, lovely space. I call it self-indulgent - I feel mildly guilty about it.”

Feels Writing Self Space Novel Lovely Guilty Settling Novel Writing Self Indulgent

Author:Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

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Novel Quotes