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Novel Quotes

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Novel Quotes

“I had been a reporter for 15 years when I set out to write my first novel. I knew how to research an article or profile a subject - skills that I assumed would be useless when it came to fiction. It was from my imagination that the characters in my story would emerge.”

Writing Years Firsts Character Stories Would Be Imagination Fiction Novel Subjects Skills Research Useless Articles Reporters My Imagination Profile

Author:Amy Waldman

“A mirror does not develop because an historical pageant passes in front of it. It only develops when it gets a fresh coat of quicksilver in other words, when it acquires new sensitiveness; and the novel's success lies in its own sensitiveness, not in the success of its subject matter.”

Doe Matter Lying Novel Subjects Fronts Mirrors Historical Acquire Coats Subject Matter Pageant

Book:Aspects Of the Novel

Source: Aspects Of the Novel

“The possibility of the impossible, dreams and illusions, are the subject of my novels.”

Dream Novel Impossible Subjects Possibility Illusion Impossible Dream

Author:Jose Saramago

“The seriousness or otherwise of the subject matter is often irrelevent to the question of whether a book is any good. F Scott Fitzgerald wrote a great and beautiful novel which mainly involved shallow people going to parties in a rich guy's house. By contrast, all sorts of terrible books are published every month about men slaughtering people for no reason - a serious matter which, in itself, does not make the author worthy of serious consideration.”

“It's an eclectic film and I think we served the novel really well. And we had a great cast who worked for free. Everyone read it and said, I'm in, from Nick [Nolte] to Albert [Finney] to Omar [Epps] to Barbara [Hershey]. We really had fun and shot it in a very short time. I think the subject matter is more topical today, more to the point, than it was 30 years ago, when it concerned the Vietnam War.”

Thinking Years Wells Said War Matter Today Film Fun Novel Subjects Shots Concerned Years Ago Casts Vietnam Vietnam War Subject Matter Short Time Eclectic Barbara Had Fun Omar Hershey

Author:Bruce Willis

“the novel is inherently a political instrument, regardless of its subject. It invites you - more than invites you, induces you - to live inside another person's skin. It creates empathy. And that's the antidote to bigotry. The novel doesn't just tell you about another life, which is what a newspaper would do. It makes you live another life, inhabit another perspective. And that's very important.”

Persons Important Political Literature Novel Subjects Perspective Empathy Skins Instruments Newspapers Bigotry Invites Antidote Another Life

Author:Barbara Kingsolver

“The kind of response I hope for when I write my novels for children: to give them a chance to recognize something of their own feelings -- about themselves, their parents, their friends -- and their own situation as a kind of subject race, always at the mercy of the adults who mostly run their lives for them.”

Giving Writing Kind Children Feelings Running Parent Chance Race Situation Novel Subjects Adults Mercy Response

Author:Nina Bawden

“My books are a subject of much discussion. They pour from shelves onto tables, chairs and the floor, and Chaz observes that I haven't read many of them and I never will. You just never know. One day I may - need is the word I use - to read Finnegans Wake, the Icelandic sagas, Churchill's history of the Second World War, the complete Tintin in French, 47 novels by Simenon, and By Love Possessed.”

Knows World Needs May Book War Use Novel Subjects Havens One Day Tables Discussion War Of The Worlds Chairs Possessed Shelves Second World War Saga Finnegans Wake

Author:Roger Ebert

“A psychologically engrossing novel about the homes we make-in our houses, in our neighborhoods, and in the hearts of our loved ones. Laken takes on that great unspoken American subject-class-and does so with frankness, acuity and surpassing feeling. DREAM HOUSE is a memorable debut novel from a fully mature talent.”

Heart Doe Feelings Home Dream House Class Novel Subjects Talent Memorable Neighborhood Mature Loved Ones Unspoken Debut Surpassing Frankness Dream House

Author:Peter Ho Davies

“Being accused of making money by selling sex in Hollywood, home of the casting couch and the gratuitous nude scene, is so rich with irony that it's a better subject for a comic novel than a column.... On one coast the cops are busting sex workers on Eighth Avenue, dragging them downtown to night court where they pay the fine and go right back to their corner; on another they're charging Heidi Fleiss with pandering in a town in which the verb is an art form.”

“The base of all artistic genius is the power of conceiving humanity in a new, striking, rejoicing way, of putting a happy world ofits own creation in place of the meaner world of common days, of generating around itself an atmosphere with a novel power of refraction, selecting, transforming, recombining the images it transmits, according to the choice of the imaginative intellect. In exercising this power, painting and poetry have a choice of subject almost unlimited.”

Source: The Renaissance

“The subject of the novel is reality liberated from soul. The reader in complete independence presented with a structured process:let him evaluate it, not the author. The façade of the novel cannot be other than stone or steel, flashing electrically or dark, but silent.”

Soul Reality Process Dark Novel Subjects Reader Stones Independence Silent Steel Objectivity Liberated Evaluate

Author:Alfred Doblin

“I certainly incorporate facts into my fiction. I take the basic facts from the life of my subject and I pick and choose what to use to construct a really interesting novel. I don't let facts get in the way of my imagination and my exploration of the subject's emotions and relationships.”

Way Facts Use Imagination Interesting Emotion Fiction Novel Subjects Picks Exploration Constructs My Imagination Really Interesting

Author:Melanie Benjamin

“In the books by Ruy-Sanchez we find again the erotic conviction that allows us to read with all the skin. The erotic, in his narratives is not a subject or a phrase, it is the clay of what they are made. In his novels every experience, trivial or extraordinary, breaths through the erotic.”

Made Book Novel Subjects Skins Breaths Extraordinary Conviction Narrative Phrases Clay Erotic

Author:Alberto Manguel

“The subject of a novel is not the plot. Who remembers what happened to Lucien de Rebempre in the end?”

Ends Remember Fiction Novel Happened Subjects Plot

Author:Graham Greene

“Whatever I write, no matter how gray or dark the subject matter, it's still going to be a comic novel.”

Writing Stills Matter Dark Novel Subjects Comic Gray Subject Matter

Author:John Irving

“What I find interesting and heartening, though, is that there does seem to be a shift in the subject matter being written about by women that is doing well in the culture. We're seeing more women writing dystopian fiction, more women writing novels set post-apocalyptic settings, subjects and themes that used to be dominated by men.”

“I have no plans to use the Internet as the main subject of a novel.”

Use Novel Plans Subjects Internet

Author:Nelson DeMille

“It may be old hat, but I see no reason to close off what is for me a fruitful subject of inquiry, especially so for one, like me, who is very much interested in creating stories and novels of ideas.”

May Ideas Reason Stories Novel Subjects Creating Like Me Hats No Reason Inquiry Creating Stories

Author:Norman Lock

“The messiness [in my books] is nothing like an Atwood novel. For me, the deeper subjects are secrets versus intimacy, and how both beget safety but also threaten it. And there is a lot for me about loss, too.”

Book Loss Secret Novel Subjects Safety Deeper Intimacy Versus Begets Messiness

Author:Edan Lepucki

“With my students, I don't offer any simple tips like that, maybe because my own process is pretty messy, but when we workshop we talk a lot about the deeper subject, which is what the story or novel is about. I think defining a narrative's themes can lay bare a narrative's tensions.”

Thinking Stories Process My Own Simple Novel Subjects Students Offers Lays Deeper Narrative Tension Theme Defining Messy Workshops

Author:Edan Lepucki

“While I was drawn to the Renaissance, my first (unpublished) novels took place in modern times. When the subject of alchemy started creeping into my stories, an astute mentor observed that the bits about alchemy might fit better in another time frame. When I finally decided to weave the pieces about the medieval science into historical settings, a successful novel began to emerge. (And I dusted off that art history book, and put it to use once again.)”

“The strange thing, though, is that most people who write novels these days seem to be aware of only a fraction of its possibilities. Kundera goes on and on about this, and I never tire of reading him on the subject, because I agree very deeply with it.”

People Writing Seems Reading Novel Subjects Possibility Strange Goes On Agree These Days Tire Fractions Strange Things Very Deep

Author:Teju Cole