“What initially attracted me to The Seventh Seal was that it had values and characteristics which I was familiar with in other art forms, most notably, the European novel and certain forms on English drama, and indeed, in relation to my rather academic interest in history -- not "history" in the normal sense, but history as a form of entertainment . It might be a very unfashionable view but I believe that history is an amazing bank or reserve area of plots, characterisations, extraordinary events, etc.” BelieveArtMightFormCertainValuesI BelieveInterestViewsNovelEventsDramaNormalAreasRelationExtraordinaryEntertainmentFamiliarCharacteristicsEtcPlotAcademicReservesSeals Author:Peter Greenaway
“a novel is not born of a single idea. The stories I've tried to write from one idea, no matter how terrific an idea, have sputtered out and died by chapter three. For me, novels have invariably come from a complex of ideas that in the beginning seemed to bear no relation to each other, but in the unconscious began mysteriously to merge and grow. Ideas for a novel are like the strong guy lines of a spider web. Without them the silken web cannot be spun.” WritingIdeasMatterStoriesGuyThreeStrongGrowsBornLinesNovelBearsRelationDiedComplexesUnconsciousChaptersSpidersTerrificSpunSpider Web Author:Katherine Paterson
“Whenever summer rolls around I begin to realize that I'm a complete and utter book snob. In relation to reading, I have absolutely no guilty pleasures at all. No graphic novels. No murder mysteries. My summer read is really no different from my winter read. I know many bookshops and magazines would have me believe that our summer forays are different, but literature is literature, and unfortunately snobbery is snobbery.” KnowsBelieveBookDifferentReadingLiteratureRealizingPleasureNovelMysterySummerRelationMurderWinterGuiltyMagazinesGraphicSnobSnobberyGraphic NovelsBookshopsGuilty PleasureMurder Mysteries Author:Colum McCann
“Hemingway is terribly limited. His technique is good for short stories, for people who meet once in a bar very late at night, but do not enter into relations. But not for the novel.” PeopleWritingStoriesNightNovelLateRelationTechniqueBarsShort Story Author:W. H. Auden
“But the doctors in the past, as the review of the evidence showed, branded Jenner, Semmelweis, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Pasteur, Lister, Koch and Keen as charlatans...Napoleon said that war is too important to be left to the generals. We go on the assumption in the Senate that foreign relations are too important to be left to the diplomats...this question (on a novel cancer cure) is too important to leave purely to doctors.” SaidImportantWarAgePastLeftDarkNovelGoes OnEvidenceDoctorsRelationCancerMedicalCuresAssumptionReviewsSenateDark AgesHolmesDiplomatsCharlatansBrandedForeign RelationsPasteurCancer Cure Author:Paul Douglas
“A Heart So White is simply one of the best novels I know. I'm also thrilled by Javier Marías sentences, by how elegant they are while also being so permissive in relation to the niceties of grammar and so open to the prospect of surprise. He's a genius.” KnowsHeartWhiteNovelGeniusRelationSurpriseSentencesMarsElegantGrammarNiceties Author:Garth Greenwell
“Even my novels offer passages in which the major character is imagined as a writer. In Joss and Gold, Li An is a business writer who edits her company's weekly public relations magazine. And in Sister Swing, Suyin writes human interest stories for a free, local community paper, The Asian Time.” WritingHumansCharacterStoriesInterestCommunityCompanyNovelOffersPaperMajorsGoldRelationLocalsMagazinesPassagesSwingsAsianEditsPublic RelationsLocal Community Author:Shirley Geok-lin Lim