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Novel Quotes

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Novel Quotes

“As it can be maintained that all the great advances have come from men under forty, so the history of the world shows that a very large proportion of the evils may be traced to the sexagenarians, nearly all the great mistakes politically and socially, all of the worst poems, most of the bad pictures, a majority of the bad novels and not a few of the bad sermons and speeches.”

Men World May Shows Evil Mistake Novel Worst Speech Majority Proportion Forty Sermons World History Great Mistakes

Book:The Quotable Osler

Source: The Quotable Osler

“The Da Vinci Code may well be the only novel ever written that begins with the word 'renowned'... I think what enabled the first word to tip me off that I was about to spend a number of hours in the company of one of the worst prose stylists in the history of literature was this. Putting curriculum vitae details into complex modifiers on proper names or definite descriptions is what you do in journalistic stories about deaths; you just don't do it in describing an event in a narrative... Why did I keep reading? Because London Heathrow is a long way from San Francisco International.”

“Never, if you can possibly help it, write a novel. It is, in the first place, a thoroughly unsocial act. It makes one obnoxious to one's family and to one's friends. One sits about for many weeks, months, even years, in the worst cases, in a state of stupefaction.”

Ifs Writing Years Firsts States Helping Cases Novel Week Worst Months Obnoxious

Author:Pearl S. Buck

“The worst kind of novel is one that blames other people for the racial problem in order to make the reader feel good about himself. As if it's only rich white people or Republicans or conservatives who have this disease.”

People Ifs Feels Kind Problem Order White Novel Rich Worst Reader Republican Disease Blame Feel Good

Author:George Pelecanos

“The worst violence we can do to each other often is psychological, especially in families. I dwell a lot on domestic danger. Thats the backdrop of most of my novels - what kind of damage is done without ever lifting a finger.”

Kind Done Can Do Novel Violence Worst Danger Fingers Psychological Damage Lifting Often Is Backdrop Damage Is Done

Author:Lisa Unger

“It cannot but be injurious to the human mind never to be called into effort: the habit of receiving pleasure without any exertion of thought, by the mere excitement of curiosity, and sensibility, may be justly ranked among the worst effects of habitual novel-reading.”

Mind Humans May Reading Pleasure Effort Novel Worst Effects Habit Mere Curiosity Excitement Human Mind Receiving Sensibility Habitual Exertion

Book:The works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Source: The works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“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 prefer all but the very worst travel books, to all but the very best novels.”

Book Novel Worst Travel Books

Book:The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh

Source: The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh

“What le Carré is so good at is unpicking something very specific about Englishness. That is almost part of why I think he wrote the novel. You can feel le Carré's anger that someone who has had the benefits of an English education and an English upbringing is using that privilege to basically do the worst things imaginable. There is an anger in the book about that.”

Thinking Feels Book Novel Worst Benefits Privilege Worst Things Upbringing English Education

Author:Tom Hiddleston