Home / Topics / Novel Quotes

Novel Quotes

Browse 6108 quotes about Novel.

Novel Quotes

“I used to think that: whenever I heard that someone had taken 10 years to write a novel, I'd think it must be a big, serious book. Now I think, 'No - it took you one year to write, and nine years to sit around eating Kit Kats.”

Thinking Writing Years Book Bigs Used Novel Taken Heard Serious Eating Nine Nine Years

Author:Ian Rankin

“I think in general, novels by men tend to be taken more seriously than novels by women.”

Thinking Men Novel Taken

Author:Curtis Sittenfeld

“In the usual way I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of "normal" work. In my twenties some of my work for children was published by Macmillan. However, I was twenty-seven before my adult novel, The Birthgrave, was taken by DAW Books in the USA. This enabled me finally to stop doing stupid and soul-killing jobs, and start working day and night as a professional writer. It felt like a rescue from damnation, and still does.”

“Peter Watts has taken the core myths of the First Contact story and shaken them to pieces. The result is a shocking and mesmerizing performance, a tour-de-force of provocative and often alarming ideas. It is a rare novel that has the potential to set science fiction on an entirely new course. Blindsight is such a book.”

Firsts Book Ideas Stories Courses Force Results Fiction Novel Taken Pieces Performances Science Fiction Myth Core Contact Peter Shocking Provocative First Contact Mesmerizing

Author:Karl Schroeder

“I started to write a series of fantasy novels when I was eleven. I have never taken anything artistic as seriously; since then, writing has felt like an attempt to get back there, to my bedroom, my maps, those races and languages and runes.”

Writing Language Felt Race Fantasy Novel Taken Series Artistic Maps Get Back Bedroom Eleven Runes Fantasy Novels

Author:Ken Baumann

“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 think my writing process changes as I gain more life experience... It has taken me many years to be able to write a novel that shows the points of view of people of different ages and personalities.”

People Thinking Writing Years Different Shows Age Able Process Views Novel Taken Personality Gains Point Of View Life Experience Writing Process Different Ages

Author:Kathleen Winter

“The term "bend sinister" means a heraldic bar or band drawn from the left side (and popularly, but incorrectly, supposed to denote bastardy). This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world. The title's drawback is that a solemn reader looking for "general ideas" or "human interest" (which is much the same thing) in a novel may be led to look for them in this one.”

World Humans Looks May Mean Ideas Turns Choices Left Sides Term Interest Novel Taken Broken Reader Band Mirrors Bars Titles Solemn Outlines Distortion Sinister Drawbacks Wrong Turn

Author:Vladimir Nabokov

“With a historical novel you know that liberties are being taken. Since Walter Scott, we know that poetic license, dramatic license, that events been conflated and that liberties have been taken, characters ditto, dates rearranged. But people don't seem to understand that movies are fictions, they are dramatizations, at least historical movies, and we should accord the moviemakers some of the same understanding and latitude. When you go to a movie you know it's a dramatization and not history.”

People Knows Should Has Beens Character Seems Understanding Fiction Liberty Novel Taken Events Historical Dramatic Poetic License Accord Latitude Historical Novels Poetic License

Author:Nicholas Meyer

“My springboard is always the script. Even if the script is taken from a novel, I often haven't read the novel...”

Ifs Novel Taken Havens Scripts Springboards

Author:John Hurt

“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

“Along the (writing) way accidents happen, detours get taken... But these are not "divine" accidents; I don't believe in those. I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions. The more you know about a book, the freer you can be to fool around. The less you know, the tighter you get.”

“Writing a novel- actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs- is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV's so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it's damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing better to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit.”

Should Writing Littles Pain Novel Taken Impossible Example Tvs Internet Accounts Credit Endless Forests Ass All Time Damn Distraction Filling Paragraph Dickens Ranking Filling In Mutton

Author:Steve Hely

“After something crystallizes, I can write ferociously and write novels in six months, which in the past would have taken me two years.”

Writing Years I Can Two Past Novel Taken Months Six Two Years Six Months

Book:Conversations with Paul Auster

Source: Conversations with Paul Auster

“I've never taken any classes or had formal training in writing novels. At its most basic, I learned how to structure a novel.”

Writing Class Novel Taken Training Structure Formal

Author:Dennis Green