Best novel & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 5

“Writing, and especially writing a novel, where you get to sit in a room by yourself with either a pen and a paper or a computer for a couple of years, is a very solitary occupation. You can read sales figures - a hundred thousand books sold, half a million books sold - but they are just numbers.”

Writing Years Book Rooms Numbers Half Millions Novel Figures Couple Thousand Paper Computer Hundred Pens Occupation Solitary

Author:Neil Gaiman

“Whereas there are lots of good novels out there; there are a few good movies out there. People have been writing great poems for years, but there aren't a lot of good comics. I like trying to write them.”

People Writing Trying Years Has Beens Novel Good Movie

Author:Neil Gaiman

“It may sound very strange, but I love the freedom that writing a novel gives me. It is an unhindered experience. If I come after a bad day, I can decide that my protagonist will die on page 100 of my novel in a 350-page story.”

Ifs Giving Writing May I Can Stories Dies Sound Novel Strange Pages Give Me Bad Day Protagonists

Author:Ashwin Sanghi

“When you write a novel, you make other people see your imaginary friends.”

People Writing Novel Imaginary Imaginary Friend

Author:Tayari Jones

“A novelist writes a novel, and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.”

People Writing May Reading Novel Audience Five Hundred Response Novelists Solitary Thrilling

Author:August Wilson

“My first published novel, American Rust, took three and a half years of full-time work to write. But I wrote two apprentice novels before that.”

Writing Years Firsts Two Three Half Novel Rust Apprentice Half A Year

Author:Philipp Meyer

“I'd studied 16th century science and magic. I thought it was strange that people were interested in the same kinds of things my research was about. The more I thought about it, the more intriguing it became and pretty soon I was writing a novel about a reluctant witch and a 1500-year-old vampire.”

People Writing Years Kind Novel Magic Century Strange Research Vampire Witch Reluctant Intriguing

Author:Deborah Harkness

“All human states are organic brain states - happiness, sadness, fear, lust, dreaming, doing math problems and writing novels - and our brains are not static.”

Writing Humans States Problem Dream Brain Novel Sadness Math Lust Static Math Problems Happiness Sadness

Author:Siri Hustvedt

“Romance novels are my favorite books to read. I write young adult romances, and am so happy to be promoting this wonderful genre.”

Writing Book Romance Young Novel Wonderful Adults My Favorite Young Adult Genre Promoting Romance Novel Favorite Book

Author:Simone Elkeles

“When I pretended to be precocious, people started the rumor that I was precocious. When I acted like an idler, rumor had it I was an idler. When I pretended I couldn't write a novel, people said I couldn't write. When I acted like a liar, they called me a liar. When I acted like a rich man, they started the rumor I was rich. When I feigned indifference, they classed me as the indifferent type. But when I inadvertently groaned because I was really in pain, they started the rumor that I was faking suffering. The world is out of joint.”

People Men World Writing Said Pain Suffering Novel Rich Type Indifference Liars Indifferent Joints Rumor Rich Man Idlers Precocious

Author:Osamu Dazai

“It is so much hard work writing your first novel. You're not even sure that it is possible to do.”

Writing Firsts Hard Novel Hard Work

Author:Asa Larsson

“I find coming up with a title the hardest part of writing a novel.”

Writing Novel Hardest Titles

Author:Sara Shepard

“Gail Anderson-Dargatz has a noticing eye, a voice as unique as the countryside she writes about, and a heart large enough to love her entire cast of distinct and memorable characters. In The Cure for Death by Lightning she fashions an irresistible song out of the joys and dangers of growing up, the mysteries and wonders of life on a farm, the thrilling terror of trying to outrun the awful unseen force that pursues a growing girl. This novel opens a door to a shining, surprising world.”

“For me, writing a novel is like solving a puzzle. But I don't intend my novels as puzzles. I intend them as invitations to dance.”

Writing Novel Puzzles Invitations

Author:Mohsin Hamid

“Building a dollhouse is a lot like writing a novel because you are God of the Universe.”

Writing Universe Novel Building Dollhouses

Author:Jill McCorkle

“If it takes you seven years to write each novel, you need a patron. And I would rather have my corporate self as my patron than any arts council or bestower of grants.”

Ifs Needs Writing Years Art Self Novel Seven Corporate Grants Council Seven Years Patron

Author:Mohsin Hamid

“Seven years into writing a novel, I started to lose my mind. My thirty-seventh birthday had just come and gone, the end of 2008 was approaching, and I was constantly aware of how little I had managed to accomplish.”

Writing Years Mind Littles Ends Loses Novel Gone Seven Accomplish Thirty Seven Years Seventh Birthday

Author:Akhil Sharma

“When Im writing a novel, which is what I like to write, I get up early, sit zazen, make a pot of green tea. I wear wrist cuffs to keep my wrists warm and minimize irritation from extended contact with the surface of my desk. I sit down and write.”

Writing Novel Down And Green Warm Surface Contact Get Up Tea Pot Desks Wrists Up Early Irritation Cuffs Green Tea

Author:Ruth Ozeki

“Douglas Adams did not enjoy writing, and he enjoyed it less as time went on. He was a bestselling, acclaimed, and much-loved novelist who had not set out to be a novelist, and who took little joy in the process of crafting novels. He loved talking to audiences. He liked writing screenplays. He liked being at the cutting edge of technology and inventing”

Writing Littles Joy Process Enjoy Talking Technology Novel Audience Cutting Edges Enjoyed Novelists Screenplays Inventing Cutting Edge

Book:The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Source: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

“In everything I've written, the crime has always just been an occasion to write about other things. I don't have a picture of myself as writing crime novels. I like fairly strong narratives, but it's a way of getting a plot moving.”

Way Writing Moving Strong Novel Written Crime Occasions Narrative Plot Crime Novels Pictures Of Myself

Author:Peter Temple

“In writing, I'm totally anti-plans of any kind. All my attempts to plan and plot novels have come to grief, and in expensive ways.”

Way Writing Kind Grief Novel Plans Expensive Plot

Author:Peter Temple

“As far as I am concerned, I write novels, and other people can do the labelling.”

People Writing Can Do Novel Concerned

Author:Peter Temple

“I think the novel form chose me. I was a writer before I became a criminal... my first instinct was to write.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Form Novel Instinct Criminals

Author:Gregory David Roberts

“The idea that a student can write a sonnet or a novel without having a sound understanding about its history, and where it fits into literature as a whole, seems to me to be manifestly daft.”

Writing Ideas Whole Seems Poetry Literature Understanding Sound Novel Students Fit Sonnet Daft

Author:Nicholas Royle

“I set out to write a screenplay but, since my early 20s, had dreamed of writing a novel.”

Writing Novel Screenplays Early 20s

Author:Graeme Simsion

“I read all the time. Sometimes I get asked if I've thought about writing a novel.”

Ifs Writing Sometimes Novel

Author:Noah Baumbach

“And if I'm guilty of having gratuitous sex, then I'm also guilty of having gratuitous violence, and gratuitous feasting, and gratuitous description of clothes, and gratuitous heraldry, because very little of this is necessary to advance the plot. But my philosophy is that plot advancement is not what the experience of reading fiction is about. If all we care about is advancing the plot, why read novels? We can just read Cliffs Notes.”

Ifs Writing Littles Philosophy Care Reading Sex Fiction Novel Violence Clothes Notes Guilty Description Plot Advancement Cliffs Advancing Feasting Reading Fiction

Author:George R. R. Martin

“In this world that we live in we have originality in literature, but we also have TV and movies. I write love stories. I could never write a love story based on the Titanic - that was never a novel. If I see an idea that's been done in film, I try to avoid that.”

Ifs World Writing Trying Ideas Done Stories Film Literature Novel This World Tvs Love Story Originality

Author:Nicholas Sparks

“The movies are fun, but I'm a novelist. In many ways, screenwriting is much easier than writing novels. I find screenplays twenty times easier to write than a novel.”

Way Writing Fun Novel Easier Twenties Novelists Screenplays Screenwriting

Author:Nicholas Sparks

“There is no such thing as too ordinary to write about, whether that's life or a scene in a novel. What's interesting to people, whether it's memoir or fiction, is the truth.”

People Writing Interesting Fiction Novel Scene Ordinary Memoir

Author:Augusten Burroughs

“How are we to write The Russian novel in America As long as life goes so unterribly?”

Writing Long America United States Novel

Book:Selected poems

Source: Selected poems

“Women hock their jewels and their husbands' insurance policies to acquire an unaccustomed shade in hair or crêpe de chine. Why then is it that when anyone commits anything novel in the arts he should be always greeted by this same peevish howl of pain and surprise? One is led to suspect that the interest people show in these much talked of commodities, painting, music, and writing, cannot be very deep or very genuine when they so wince under an unexpected impact.”

“Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths.”

People Should Writing Enough Novel Poet Fame Mouths Profit Bread

Book:Jane Austen's Letters

Source: Jane Austen's Letters

“I write whenever it suits me. During a creative period I write every day; a novel should not be interrupted. When I cease to be carried along, when I no longer feel as though I were taking down dictation, I stop.”

Feels Should Writing Novel Creative Periods Cease Suits Interrupted Dictation

Author:Francois Mauriac

“My big dream back then was to buy an IBM Selectric. I still have that dream. I really ought to buy a word-processor. Half the cabbies at Rocky own computers. They tell me they can write failed novels ten times faster on a PC.”

Writing Stills Dream Bigs Half Novel Ought Ten Computer Faster Ibm Processors

Author:Gary Reilly

“I've just finished a series of Olivia Manning novels. She's best known for two trilogies: Balkan Trilogy and Levant Trilogy. The six novels are continuous and contain the same set of characters. They are based on Manning's experiences in Eastern Europe and Egypt during the Second World War. Each novel is a wonderful picture of the peculiar British expatriate culture and what was happening during the war. She's one of those brilliant women who write very well about domestic relationships. All the books are slim, and it's easy to gallop through them.”

“The Dream Lover-what a bold, insightful, and enticing novel. And how vigorously Elizabeth Berg brings us the iconoclastic life of George Sand. Berg writes with such intimacy and compassion that I think she must have some shared ancestral DNA with Sand. I savored every page.”

Thinking Writing Dream Compassion Novel Lovers Pages Intimacy Sand Insightful Dna Enticing

Author:Frances Mayes

“I won't read a new graphic comic novel until the writer has completed the entire series. I got burned a few times when I got turned on to a book, plowed through it only to find out the author was in the middle of writing the next.”

Writing Book Next Novel Middle Series Comic Burned Graphic

Author:Nick Offerman

“I was not exploiting any real individual's story in writing ROOM, of course I was aware that my novel, by commenting on such situations, would run the risk of falling into those traps of voyeurism, sensationalism and sentimentality.”

Writing Real Stories Running Fall Courses Individual Rooms Situation Novel Risk Traps Sentimentality Sensationalism

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I was highly aware, in writing [the book] ROOM, that there are unsavoury aspects to our interest in such cases, and I thought it was rather honester to include discussion of media representation in the novel itself than to cling to the high moral ground by merely avoiding scenes of voyeurism, for instance.”

Writing Book Interest Rooms Moral Cases Novel Media Scene Aspect Instance Discussion Representation Avoiding

Author:Emma Donoghue

“Seriously, I think what all the puzzling over parenthood I had to do to write [a novel] ROOM taught me is that children can thrive in a remarkable range of situations.”

Thinking Writing Children Rooms Situation Novel Taught Range Thrive Remarkable Parenthood Puzzling

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I'm always interested in the way people speak and move in their environment, in a very particular environment. I'm never interested in writing a kind of neutral, universal novel that could be set anywhere. To me, the any novel is a local thing always.”

People Way Writing Kind Moving Speak Novel Environment Particular Universal Locals

Author:Zadie Smith

“Introduce your main characters and themes in the first third of your novel. If you are writing a plot-driven genre novel make sure all your major themes/plot elements are introduced in the first third, which you can call the introduction. Develop your themes and characters in your second third, the development. Resolve your themes, mysteries and so on in the final third, the resolution.”

Ifs Writing Firsts Character Novel Mystery Development Elements Majors Thirds Finals Driven Genre Theme Plot Resolve Resolution Introducing Introduction Main Characters

Author:Michael Moorcock

“I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power.”

Writing Political Interest Novel Journalist Interest In Politics

Author:Robert Harris

“Every reader of the Dreiser novels must cherish astounding specimens--of awkward, platitudinous marginalia, of whole scenes spoiled by bad writing, of phrases as brackish as so many lumps of sodium hyposulphite.”

Writing Whole Literature Novel Reader Scene Phrases Cherish Awkward Spoiled Lumps American Literature Bad Writing Sodium

Book:A book of prefaces

Source: A book of prefaces

“The object is very clear in the fight against racism; you have reasons why you're opposed to it. But when you're writing a novel, you don't want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that.”

Want Writing Reason Life Is Fighting Novel Clear Objects Reader Racism Complicated Reason Why Voting Yes Or No Against Racism

Author:Margaret Atwood

“There's no lack of writers writing novels in America, about America. Therefore, it seems to me it would be wasteful for me to add to that huge number of people writing here when there are so few people writing about somewhere else.”

People Writing Seems Would Be America Numbers Novel Huge Add Somewhere Else Huge Numbers

Author:Chinua Achebe

“If one writes or reads novels from the point of view of psychology, it is very inconsistent and petty to want to shy away from even the slowest and most detailed analysis of the most unnatural lusts, gruesome tortures, shocking infamy, and disgusting sensual or spiritual impotence.”

Ifs Want Writing Spiritual Views Novel Psychology Point Of View Lust Sensual Analysis Torture Shy Disgusting Shocking Petty Unnatural Inconsistent Impotence Infamy

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“Is it not superfluous to write more than one novel if the writer has not become, say, a new man? Obviously, all the novels of an author not infrequently belong together and are to a certain degree only one novel.”

Ifs Men Writing Together Certain Novel Degrees Superfluous

Author:Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

“The only way to write a novel is to proceed as if you had all the time in the world.”

Ifs World Way Writing Novel

Book:Writing a Book That Makes a Difference

Source: Writing a Book That Makes a Difference

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