Best novel & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 7

“My father was a frustrated writer. I think he wanted to write the great American novel.”

Thinking Writing Wanted Father Novel Frustrated Great American

“You don't market-research a novel; you really are writing it for yourself. It's a hobby, in many ways. The problem becomes what you do when you're confronted by criticism. You just don't listen to it.”

Way Writing Problem Novel Research Criticism Hobbies Market Research

Author:Bret Easton Ellis

“Writing a novel, I am making is an object that has a life and identity of its own, apart from me.”

Writing Novel Identity Objects

Author:Jay Neugeboren

“Despite the war, and bombings, and all the big things that happen to us, the stuff of our lives is small and always will be. During a war it is different, but even then, it is perfectly possible to write novels during a major war, which are about those thing which endure. It is what makes us human and the thing which is going to keep going.”

Writing Humans Different War Bigs Happens Life Is Stuff Novel Our Lives Majors Endure Despite Keep Going Big Things Bombing

Author:Robert Dessaix

“One of the unfortunate things about creative writing courses is that they make people impatient. People feel that they have prepared themselves and that they must now do it. In fact there are positive incentives for doing so - universities are offering degrees for writing novels.”

People Feels Writing Facts Courses Novel Creative Degrees Prepared University Offering Unfortunate Creative Writing Incentives Impatient Unfortunate Things

Author:Robert Dessaix

“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

“When I am writing a novel, though, then it's usually three or four hours a day. Ideally, right after lunch until three or four, but sometimes picking up again around ten, going until a touch after midnight. I rarely write in the morning, unless I'm on deadline. I do like rewriting in the morning, though. Guess it's the way my brain's put together. Or, the way it's falling apart.”

Way Writing Sometimes Together Fall Three Hours Brain Morning Novel Four Ten Lunch Midnight Falling Apart Deadline Rewriting

Author:Stephen Graham Jones

“There's no really other way to learn writing than by writing. So accelerate that as much as you can. The more you write, the better you'll get. What also helps, though, is walking away from broken stuff. Not everything's going to work. Killing two years of your life trying to resuscitate a dying novel, I don't know. Why not just write a different one? You'll have more ideas. You can't help having ideas.”

Knows Way Writing Trying Years Two Ideas Different Helping Stuff Novel Dying Broken Walking Killing Two Years Why Not Going To Work Accelerate Walking Away

Author:Stephen Graham Jones

“In the great city of San Francisco, where I used to live, at 2 in the morning every other Victorian house has somebody who is writing the great American novel. And the city is not loaded with James Joyces or Virginia Woolfs. But entrepreneurship is about distorted views of reality.”

Writing Reality Used House Views Business Cities Morning Novel Entrepreneurship San Francisco Virginia Loaded Victorian Great American Great Cities Joyce

Author:Tom Peters

“I enjoy writing plays most. I haven't written a radio play in a while and I don't write short stories anymore because the process of submitting them depressed me. I really enjoy revising novels, but drafting them can be a pain.”

Writing Play Stories Pain Process Enjoy Novel Written Havens Radio Short Story Revising Drafting Radio Plays

Author:Sefi Atta

“When I became a feminist, when the movement started in the late sixties, I started writing because I had something urgent to say. My first novel, Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen, is the product of that urgency.”

Writing Firsts Novel Movement Products Late Feminist Memoir Queens Sixty Exes Urgent Urgency Prom Prom Queen

Author:Alix Kates Shulman

“Writing a novel is always complicated, it's not like you snap your fingers and go, 'Ah, I know what I'll write'. For me, a lot of the time, I have to write and as I write, I learn about the story.”

Knows Writing Stories Novel Like You Fingers Complicated Snaps

Author:Reif Larsen

“I don't see myself as a very important person. But I was the second woman to write a novel in Iran, and I have written most of the novels about Iranian women. In this way, maybe I have a good place in Iranian literature.”

Way Writing Persons Important Literature Novel Written Iran Iranian Good Place Important Person

Author:Shahrnush Parsipur

“The process for writing a picture book is completely different from the process of writing a chapter book or novel. For one thing, most of my picture books rhyme. Also, when I write a picture book I'm always thinking about the role the pictures will play in the telling of the story. It can take me several months to write a picture book, but it takes me several years to write a novel.”

Thinking Writing Years Book Different Play Stories Process Roles Novel One Thing Months Take Me Chapters Rhyme Always Thinking Picture Books

Author:Sarah Weeks

“I'd written my first novel for adults, which was called Basic Eight and was set in a high school, and we were having a devil of a time selling it. It ended up in the hands of an editor of a children's publishing house, for which it was entirely inappropriate. She said, "Well, we can't publish this, but I think you should write something for children," which I thought was a really terrible idea.”

“Like most writers, I look back on all of my finished works with utter regret, and the trouble with writing a series of novels is that you have to go back and read them, and make sure that you haven't forgotten anything you've created, and then when you do that, you're faced with your own mistakes on every trick, from the wrong word in places to entirely the wrong incident.”

Writing Looks Mistake Novel Trouble Havens Regret Series Forgotten Finished Tricks Incidents Finished Work Wrong Words

Author:Daniel Handler

“Writing a novel is like heading out over the open sea in a small boat. It helps, if you have a plan and a course laid out.”

Ifs Writing Helping Courses Novel Plans Sea Boat Headings Fiction Writing Writers And Writing Writing Fiction Writing By Writers

Author:John Gardner

“You can only look forward to a South Dakota winter if, as with childbirth, remodeling a house, or writing a novel, you're able to forget how bad it was the last time.”

Ifs Writing Looks Able Lasts House Forget Novel South Winter Last Time Childbirth Dakota South Dakota Remodeling

Book:Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch

Source: Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch

“With a song, it only takes a couple of minutes to go back to the beginning and try it again to see if it works. The novel freaks me out because, what if you get into the eighth chapter and think, 'Let's go to the top and see if this works again? It's going to take me three weeks.' I'm in awe of that.”

Ifs Thinking Writing Trying Song Three Novel Week Minutes Couple Awe What If Songwriting Take Me Freak Chapters

Author:Ben Folds

“I began to write fiction on the assumption that the true enemies of the novel were plot, character, setting and theme, and having once abandoned these familiar ways of thinking about fiction, totality of vision or structure was really all that remained.”

Source: A John Hawkes symposium: design and debris

“With a novel, which takes perhaps years to write, the author is not the same man he was at the end of the book as he was at the beginning. It is not only that his characters have developed-he has developed with them, and this nearly always gives a sense of roughness to the work: a novel can seldom have the sense of perfection which you find in Chekhov's story, The Lady with the Dog.”

Men Giving Writing Years Book Ends Character Stories Novel Dog Perfection Insightful Short Story Chekhov Roughness Writing Short Stories

Book:Collected Stories

Source: Collected Stories

“I attempt to write a good novel. Whether it is literature or not is something that will be decided by the ages, not by me and not by a pack of critics around the globe.”

Writing Age Literature Novel Decided Critics Globes Packs

Author:Elizabeth George

“The Florida in my novels is not as seedy as the real Florida. It's hard to stay ahead of the curve. Every time I write a scene that I think is the sickest thing I have ever dreamed up, it is surpassed by something that happens in real life.”

Thinking Writing Real Hard Happens Novel Scene Real Life Florida Curves

Author:Carl Hiaasen

“When I began to write seriously, 40 years ago now, my chosen form was the novel.”

Writing Years Form Novel Years Ago Chosen

Author:William Nicholson

“Writing a film - more precisely, adapting a book into a film - is basically a relentless series of compromises. The skill, the "art," is to make those compromises both artistically valid and essentially your own. . . . It has been said before but is worth reiterating: writing a novel is like swimming in the sea; writing a film is like swimming in the bath.”

Writing Has Beens Art Said Book Film Novel Sea Skills Art Is Series Compromise Crafts Swimming Baths Relentless Adapting

Author:William Boyd

“I did not set out to write another novel. One day I sat down with the thought of trying my hand at a piece of nonfiction, a personal memoir of youth, but over the next several weeks, without intending it, the work began evolving into what has become 'Tomcat in Love.”

Writing Trying Hands Next Novel Pieces Week Youth One Day Memoir Evolve Sat Nonfiction

Author:Tim O'Brien

“Our life is a book that writes itself and whose principal themes sometimes escape us. We are like characters in a novel who do not always understand what the author wants of them.”

Want Writing Book Sometimes Character Life Is Novel Our Lives Theme Principal

Book:Diary, 1928-1957

Source: Diary, 1928-1957

“In 25 years of writing novels, I've never had anything that felt like writer's block.”

Writing Years Felt Novel Block Writer's Block

Author:Richard Powers

“I got a rejection letter from an editor at HarperCollins, who included a report from his professional reader. This report shredded my first-born novel, laughed at my phrasing, twirled my lacy pretensions around and gobbed into the seething mosh pit of my stolen clichés. As I read the report, the world became very quiet and stopped rotating. What poisoned me was the fact that the report's criticisms were all absolutely true. The sound of my landlady digging in the garden got the world moving again. I slipped the letter into the trash... knowing I'd remember every word.”

“Everyone said, 'Well, you're very old for a first novel,' and I said, 'How do you write when you haven't lived? How do you write when you have no experience? How do you write straight out of university?”

Writing Firsts Wells Said Novel Havens University

Author:Kate Atkinson

“I had a novel in the back of my mind when I won an Ian St James story competition in 1993. At the award ceremony an agent asked me if I was writing a novel. I showed her four or five chapters of what would become 'Behind the Scenes at the Museum' and to my surprise she auctioned them off.”

Ifs Writing Mind Stories Behinds Novel Five Four Scene Competition Surprise Agents Awards Museums Chapters Ceremony Of My Mind Behind The Scenes Award Ceremonies

Author:Kate Atkinson

“Be critical of but not brutal with your writing. If something isn't essential, get rid of it. Remember that good dialogue can serve a whole passel of purposes in your novel, and to overlook one of them is to overlook one of the tools of the craft. Like hitting a nail with a screwdriver, if you know what I mean.”

Ifs Knows Writing Mean Whole Remember Purpose Novel Essentials Tools Critical Dialogue Crafts Brutal Hitting Nails Screwdrivers

Author:Elizabeth George

“The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd - one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like - one writes novels about it.”

Writing Ideas Whole Answers Novel Absurd Interviews

Author:Anthony Powell

“One never knows enough about characters in real life to put them into novels. One gets started and then, suddenly, one can not remember what toothpaste they use; what are their views on interior decoration, and one is stuck utterly. No, major characters emerge; minor ones may be photographed.”

Knows Writing May Real Enough Character Use Remember Views Novel Majors Stuck Real Life Minors Can Not Interiors Decoration Toothpaste

Book:Conversations with Graham Greene

Source: Conversations with Graham Greene

“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 started out in life as a poet, I was only writing poetry all through my 20s, it wasn't until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels, I liked them.”

Writing Reading Novel Serious Poet Prose Detectives Writing Poetry Writing Poems

Author:Paul Auster

“Novel writing, to me, is all about language: choosing your words, finding the characters within the words and just really agonizing over every word. It's really crafting this whole piece from nothing.”

Writing Whole Character Language Novel Pieces Findings Novel Writing Agonizing

Author:Jonathan Tropper

“When I'm writing novels, even screenplays, it's never an actor I have in mind; it's always the version in my head of who the character is. Once somebody gets cast, I have to adjust a little bit to who they are.”

Writing Mind Littles Character Actors Bits Novel Little Bit Casts Versions Screenplays

Author:Jonathan Tropper

“I couldn't think about novels at all. It seemed the only writing that was appropriate to that horrendous event was journalism, reportage. And, in fact, I think the profession rose quite honorably to the task. Novelists require a slower turnover, I mean, in time.”

Thinking Writing Mean Facts Novel Events Tasks Rose Profession Journalism Novelists Appropriate Turnover

Author:Ian Mcewan

“Writing has to do with truth-telling. When you're writing, let's say, an essay for a magazine, you try to tell the truth at every moment. You do your best to quote people accurately and get everything right. Writing a novel is a break from that: freedom. When you're writing a novel, you are in charge; you can beef things up.”

People Writing Trying Moments Break Novel Magazines Telling The Truth Essays Beef

Author:Nicholson Baker

“I think there's a real connection between acting and writing novels because the way I write characters has a little bit to do with the method acting that I was taught in high school and college.”

Thinking Way Writing Littles Real Character School Bits Acting Novel Taught College Little Bit High School Connections Method Method Acting Real Connection

Author:Jeffrey Eugenides

“Writing novels takes up about 100% of my available working time.”

Writing Novel Available

Author:Charles Stross

“I have time to write 1-2 novels per year, and get roughly novel-sized ideas every month. I have to perform triage on my own writing impulses.”

Writing Years Ideas My Own Novel Months Impulse Triage

Author:Charles Stross

“Speech recognition is utterly crap for writing fiction. If you try reading a novel aloud you'll soon figure out why - written prose style is utterly unlike the spoken word.”

Ifs Writing Trying Reading Fiction Novel Written Style Figures Speech Recognition Prose Crap Writing Fiction Spoken Word

Author:Charles Stross

“While writing a novel I almost completely stop reading books in the same sub-genre for the duration.”

Writing Book Reading Novel Genre Reading Books Duration

Author:Charles Stross

“If I wanted to be in movies, I'd have gone into scriptwriting: the fact that I write novels should be a big hint about what I prefer to do!”

Ifs Should Writing Facts Bigs Wanted Novel Gone Hints

Author:Charles Stross

“The novel is final form; it's the ultimate individual final form. Television and motion pictures never get there. You'd be fabulous to think that something you write is even going to be filmed. I give it the best shot of which I'm capable. But it's more a payday for me. And if I didn't have alimony and the full-time assistant.”

Ifs Thinking Giving Writing Form Individual Novel Television Capable Shots Ultimate Finals Fabulous Assistants Motion Pictures Best Shot Alimony Payday

Author:James Ellroy

“I'm not imprisoned in any one medium. In films I use techniques that are not necessarily what other directors attempt. When I write novels I also use techniques which can run counter to those that a novelist would use.”

Writing Use Running Film Novel Directors Technique Mediums Novelists

Author:Philippe Claudel

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