Best novel & stories Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 4

“In a novella, a whole lot of crap can happen, and you can build momentum and suspense and leave room for a surprise or three. Stories are cut down to the most essential elements, and novels (this might be an unfair generalization on my part) are big fat clumsy efforts where the reader can snooze for a couple chapters and miss nothing of consequence. Hence my love for the middle way.”

“I can remember as a college student writing stories and novels, some of which ended up getting published and some that didn't. It was like my head was going to burst - there were so many things I wanted to write all at once. I had so many ideas, jammed up. It was like they just needed permission to come out.”

Writing I Can Ideas Stories Wanted Remember Novel Students College Needed Permission College Students Writing Stories

Author:Stephen King

“You think you're writing one historical novel and it turns into three, and I'm quite used to a short story turning into a novel - that's happened through my whole career.”

Thinking Writing Whole Stories Used Turns Three Careers Novel Happened Historical Short Story Historical Novels

Author:Hilary Mantel

“I do write a lot of prose. It's not disciplined enough yet that it's actually become stories, or short stories. The idea of writing a novel seems impossible.”

Writing Ideas Enough Stories Seems Novel Impossible Prose Short Story

Author:PJ Harvey

“I do think a good story in a novel is fair game and there's nothing wrong with adapting that. It sometimes gets a bit facile where they think: "Let's get the next best-seller and see if we can turn it into a film."”

Ifs Thinking Sometimes Stories Film Turns Next Games Bits Novel Fairs Good Story Sellers Adapting Best Sellers Fair Game

Author:Colin Firth

“I lose patience with long stories. I get people who go, "Crumb, do some long stories, do a graphic novel." Novel-schmovel.”

People Long Stories Loses Novel Graphic Crumbs Graphic Novels Long Story

Author:Robert Crumb

“The novels have done so well because the drawings are abstract, black-and-white. This adds to the universality of the story. "Persepolis" also has dreamlike moments, and the drawings help maintain cohesion and consistency.”

Wells Done Moments Helping Stories Black White Novel Add Drawing Abstract Black And White Consistency Cohesion Universality Persepolis

Author:Marjane Satrapi

“I think that too often we, film directors, think that a big epic novel and feature film are the same. It's a lie. A feature film is much closer to a short story actually.”

Thinking Stories Bigs Film Lying Novel Directors Features Short Story Epic Film Directors

Author:Pirjo Honkasalo

“The thing I like so much about short stories is that there isn't as much of an investment of time so I'm free to experiment more. If it doesn't work out, I've only lost a week or two of work. If I screw up a novel I've lost at least a year's worth of work. But the nice thing is that those experiments with short stories can be carried over to novels when the experiments do work.”

Ifs Years Two Stories Lost Novel Nice Week Investment Work Out Experiments Short Story Screws Nice Things Screw Ups

Author:Charles de Lint

“o matter how much research you do, or invention you do, whether it's a character from a novel, a completely invented character or someone who actually existed, it's a work of faction. By the very fact you only have an hour and a half or two hours to tell a story, you're telescoping events and it is, in the end, a work of imagination.”

Two Ends Matter Character Facts Stories Hours Imagination Half Novel Events Research Invention Factions

Author:Cate Blanchett

“The majority of American writers today have chosen passive non-resistance to things as they are, producing sloughs of poetry about their personal angst and anomie, cascades of short stories and rivers of novels obsessed with the nuances of domestic relationships - suburban hanky-panky - chic boutique shopping mall literary soap opera. When they do speak out on matters of controversy they attack not the evils of our time but fellow writers who may insist on complaining.”

Source: One Life at a Time, Please

“But I'm not a small-literary-novel kind of guy, and once I'd developed the world in the first couple of hundred pages, I felt that there was potential here to go on and write an engaging story set in that world. So that's what I did. This probably ruins things both for the people who want small literary novels and for those who want action-packed epics, but anyway, it's what I wrote.”

People World Want Writing Firsts Kind Stories Action Guy Felt Novel Goes On Couple Pages Hundred Ruins Epic Engaging

Author:Neal Stephenson

“What works in a story is very different than what works in cinema. For example, dialogue in books: If you translate it too faithfully, it sounds a little stilted, because we often don't speak the way we speak in novels. Oral language is much punchier, shorter sentences.”

Ifs Way Littles Book Different Stories Speak Language Sound Novel Example Sentences Dialogue Cinema Translate

Author:Yann Martel

“My dream was to eventually make movies. To be part of the fairy tales, stories and novels I loved reading so much growing up.”

Stories Dream Reading Novel Growing Up Growing Tales Fairy Fairy Tale

Author:Irena A. Hoffman

“I'm pretty hardcore. I stick exactly to what I'm doing. So I write a novel in one period, and then I'll write stories in another period. I only work on one thing at once, because I'm afraid that I wouldn't finish what I'd started.”

Writing Stories Novel One Thing Periods Sticks Hardcore

Author:T.C. Boyle

“I can't be reading novels when I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in. The hardest thing to do is keep the tone and your attitude over the course of a year or however long it takes.But when I'm writing short stories, which I will be doing shortly, I can read anything I like.”

“A book is basically just symbols arranged to form this story, this world. But on the other hand, books, novels, literature in general, is what shows us at our most human.”

World Humans Book Stories Shows Hands Form Literature Novel This World Symbols

Author:Shane Warren Jones

“When I went to the University of Iowa in order to be a writer, I thought, This is the worst way to learn how to write. To sit in a room with a bunch of would-be writers, who want to write the Great American Novel, every one of them, and you read their stories and they read yours, and you're not living a life. I don't like that. I like learning on the job. The character of my work has definitely evolved from the character of my life.”

Way Want Writing Character Stories Would Be Jobs Order Rooms Novel Worst University Bunch Great American Iowa

Author:Joe Frank

“I wasn't aware I'd write the novel when I wrote the New Yorker story either. And the narration of their construction in 10:04 is fiction, however flickering.”

Writing Stories Fiction Novel Construction New Yorkers Narration

Author:Ben Lerner

“The story and the poem are obviously changed by being placed in the novel, so in a sense they're no longer the works that preceded the novel.”

Stories Novel Changed

Author:Ben Lerner

“Experiments with the "as if" of fiction are often more lively in poetry and criticism and other modes of writing than in weak short stories or novels.”

Ifs Writing Stories Fiction Novel Criticism Weak Experiments Short Story Lively

Author:Ben Lerner

“Read non-fiction. History, biology, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology. Get a bodyguard and do fieldwork. Find your inner fish. Don't publish too soon. Not before you have read Thomas Mann in any case. Learn by copying, sentence by sentence some of the masters. Copy Coetzee's or Sebald's sentences and see what happens to your story. Consider creative non-fiction if you want to stay in South Africa. It might be the way to go. Never neglect back and hamstring exercises, otherwise you won't be able to write your novel. One needs one's buttocks to think.”

“I started on the original comics from Stan Lee and all the artists and storytellers did from there, and I got to the graphic novel that Chris Clairmont did, which is the one Stryker comes from - God Loves, Man Kills, which is a brilliant story.”

Men Stories Artist Novel Originals Brilliant God Love Storyteller Graphic Graphic Novels

Author:Josh Helman

“Film is so much about that intensity of focus that there always needs to be some tension and some forward motion. The novel goes into a series of lovely observations about the world, but you've got to find the story.”

World Needs Stories Film Novel Focus Series Lovely Observation Tension Intensity Forward Motion

Author:Lenny Abrahamson

“I'm one of those writers who started off writing novels and came to writing short stories later, partly because I didn't have the right ideas, partly because I think that short stories are more difficult. I think learning to write short stories also made me attracted toward a paring down of the novel form.”

Thinking Writing Made Ideas Stories Form Difficult Novel Short Story Right Ideas Writing Short Writing Short Stories

Author:Julian Barnes

“I'm interested in such things as the difference between how we perceive the world and what the world turns out to be. The difference is between the stories we tell others and the stories we tell ourselves. There is a wonderful Russian saying, which I use as the epigraph of one of my novels, which goes, He lies like an eyewitness. Which is very sly, clever and true.”

World Stories Use Lying Turns Differences Novel Wonderful Clever Perceive Sly Eyewitnesses Epigraphs

Author:Julian Barnes

“When you're writing a novel, you're still telling a story. But you're telling it very differently. It's a craft like anything else.”

Writing Stills Stories Novel Crafts

Author:Howard Gordon

“My favourite novel is Frederick Forsythe's Day Of The Jackal, the story about the unproven case of this apparent Englishman who was hired to assassinate De Gaulle .”

Stories Cases Novel Favourite Englishmen Jackals

Author:Charles Kennedy

“Unlike the novel, a short story may be, for all purposes, essential.”

May Stories Purpose Novel Essentials Short Story

Author:Jorge Luis Borges

“(The short story) is a form that has all the power of the novel - some would say more - but none of the self-importance.”

Self Stories Form Novel Importance Short Story Self-importance

Author:Joseph O'Connor

“The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself. I was born into the century in which novels lost their stories, poems their rhymes, paintings their form, and music its beauty, but that does not mean I had to like that trend or go along with it. I fight against these movements with every book I write.”

“I look at the film without any music or sound. I try to grasp the story from the screenplay. I try to write to the novel or book if there is one. I try to create music that's honest and true to my heart for the story.”

Ifs Writing Trying Looks Heart Book Stories Film Sound Novel Honest My Heart Screenplays

Author:Howard Shore

“The rules seem to be these: If you have written a successful novel, everyone invites you to write short stories. If you have written some good short stories, everyone wants you to write a novel. But nobody wants anything until you have already proved yourself by being published somewhere else.”

Ifs Want Writing Stories Seems Novel Successful Written Short Story Invites Somewhere Else

Author:James A. Michener

“I think the success of every novel - if it's a novel of action - depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, 'Which are my big scenes?' and then get every drop of juice out of them. The principle I always go on in writing a novel is to think of the characters in terms of actors in a play. I say to myself, if a big name were playing this part, and if he found that after a strong first act he had practically nothing to do in the second act, he would walk out. Now, then, can I twist the story so as to give him plenty to do all the way through?”

Ifs Thinking Way Giving Writing Firsts Play Character Stories Bigs Action Actors Found Names Strong Term Walks Principles Novel Goes On Depends Scene Spots Plenty Things To Do Twists Juice

Author:P. G. Wodehouse

“One thing I've found that I can do that I really enjoy is rereading my own writing, earlier stories and novels especially. It induces mental time travel, the same way certain songs you hear on the radio do ... the whole thing returns, an eerie feeling that I'm sure you've experienced.”

Way Writing I Can Whole Stories Feelings Certain Song Found Enjoy Can Do My Own Novel One Thing Return Radio Time Travel Eerie Rereading

Author:Philip K. Dick

“I let myself go at the beginning and write with an easy mind, but by the time I get to the middle I begin to grow timid and to fear my story will be too long. . .That is why the beginning of my stories is always very promising and looks as though I were starting on a novel, and the middle is huddled and timid, and the end is...like fireworks.”

Writing Mind Looks Long Ends Stories Grows Easy Novel Middle Starting Fireworks

Author:Anton Chekhov

“You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year”

Writing Years Two Stories Hours Novel Short Story

Author:Ray Bradbury

“If you are working in an office, where do you find the time to write a novel? But you can finish a short story in five pages. Furthermore, a short story is a perfect place to learn the craft”

Ifs Writing Stories Perfect Novel Five Office Pages Crafts Short Story

Author:Ben Okri

“But television affords you, what you just described, to - over the course of 18 hours, now that we're doing a third season - tell the story of this man. You're not under any obligation, really, to do massive expositional stuff at the beginning. You're at liberty to say, "Come with us on this journey," and, gradually, you become aware of what his motivations are, what drives him, what his weaknesses are, what his strengths are. That's what I think's sucking people into these worlds, because it is kind of like a novel, you just go really, really deep.”

People Thinking Men World Kind Stories Motivation Courses Stuff Hours Liberty Novel Journey Television Weakness Thirds Seasons Obligation Massive Really Deep

Author:Cillian Murphy

“I don't know how it is with other writers, but most of the time when I finish [reading] a story or novel, I may be pleased, I may even be impressed, but somewhere in the back of my mind I'm thinking, I can do that.”

Thinking Knows Mind May I Can Stories Reading Can Do Novel Know How Impressed Of My Mind

Author:F. Paul Wilson

“...book-buyers aren't attracted, by and large, by the literary merits of a novel: book-buyers want a good story...something that will first fascinate them, then pull them in and keep them turning the pages.”

Want Firsts Book Stories Novel Pages Merit Good Story Buyers Literary Merit

Author:Stephen King

“I write all of my novels and stories, as you have seen, in a great surge of delightful passion. Only recently, glancing at the novel, I realized that Montag is named after a paper manufacturing company. And Faber, of course, is a maker of pencils! What a sly thing my subconscious was, to name them thus. And not tell me!”

Writing Stories Passion Courses Names Company Novel Paper I Realized Makers Subconscious Delightful Pencils Manufacturing Sly

Book:Fahrenheit 451: A Novel

Source: Fahrenheit 451: A Novel

“Writers need restrictions. If somebody just says, "Hey, do you want to write a novel, or an article, or a movie, or a short story, you get shut down."”

Ifs Want Needs Writing Stories Novel Hey Articles Short Story Restriction

Author:Mitchell Hurwitz

“But, you have to watch them in order. That's very important because, as it turns out, stories have to be told in order. It's like reading a novel. There are times when it's tiring. And then, you get hooked and it's a page-turner, and you really want to keep reading. I do think there will be some fatigue that sets in.”

Thinking Want Important Stories Order Turns Reading Watches Novel Pages Tire Fatigue Hooked Turner

Author:Mitchell Hurwitz

“Reading groups, readings, breakdowns of book sales all tell the same story: when women stop reading, the novel will be dead.”

Book Stories Reading Novel Groups Breakdown

Author:Ian Mcewan

“Each story, novel, poem and play presents a vision of the world that illuminates the dark cave of life we stumble through. We can see better where we're going, what sudden drop to avoid, where the cool water is running.”

World Play Stories Running Water Dark Vision Novel Caves Cool Water

Book:On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance

Source: On the Shoulders of Giants: My Journey Through the Harlem Renaissance

“Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a novel that I have read over and over and over again. Tess is a pure child who has an inner glow none of the others in the book possess. They reject her because she is different, and they try in every possible manner to destroy her, because they are jealous. It is an extraordinary love story.”

Trying Children Book Different Stories Novel Pure Extraordinary Love Story Rejects Jealous Hardy Tess Tess Of The D Urbervilles Extraordinary Love

Author:Laetitia Casta

“I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story.”

Character Stories Novel Fans Effects Century Majors Driven Passages Minors 19th Century Passage Of Time Minor Characters

Author:John Irving

“Writing a novel is actually searching for victims. As I write I keep looking for casualties. The stories uncover the casualties.”

Writing Stories Novel Victim Casualties

Author:John Irving

“And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.”

Ifs Want Writing Firsts Important Stories Order Responsibility Known Novel Taken Connections Sentences Already Taken

Author:John Irving

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