Best novel & writing Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 8

“In a novel, language is your principal tool, you try to build pictures in the mind of the reader. When you write a screenplay, the language is just a transition, the final goal is a picture on the screen, it's the only thing the audience sees.”

Writing Trying Mind Language Goal Novel Audience Reader Tools Finals Screens Transition Principal Screenplays

Author:Philippe Claudel

“I try to write books that are different from the books I've already written. I think one of the thing I really try to do is reinvent how a novel can be written.”

Thinking Writing Trying Book Different Novel Written

Author:James Frey

“In my experience, writing a novel tends to create its own structure, its own demands, its own language, its own ending.”

Writing Language Novel Demand Structure

Author:Don DeLillo

“That's how you write novels actually. You suddenly hit upon something and you realize this is the path you were meant to take. You'd be a fool if you didn't follow it. Perhaps it's like solving a difficult question in pure mathematics. There must be a moment when the solution is so simple and evident that you wonder why you hadn't come upon it before. When you do come upon it, you know it in the deepest part of your being. It carries its own logic.”

Ifs Knows Writing Moments Difficult Realizing Simple Wonder Novel Path Fool Pure Solutions Logic Mathematics Carrie Evident Difficult Questions

Author:Don DeLillo

“I think it's especially important for an editor to say what he's enjoying. For a novelist to be told, midstream, what he's doing right can actually influence the unwritten parts of a novel in a positive way - praise helps a writer know what's good about what he's written, what's interesting and exciting, and what to work for in writing the conclusion.”

Thinking Knows Way Writing Important Helping Enjoy Interesting Novel Written Influence Exciting Praise Conclusion Novelists Editors Doing Right Unwritten

Author:Donna Tartt

“When I sit down to write a novel I do not at all know, and I do not very much care, how it is to end.”

Knows Writing Ends Care Novel

Book:An autobiography

Source: An autobiography

“Just getting something to work usually means writing reams of code fast, like a Stephen King novel, but making it maintainable and high-quality code that really expresses the ideas well, is like writing poetry. Art is taking away.”

Writing Wells Mean Art Ideas Quality Novel Kings Art Is Code High Quality Writing Poetry

Author:Erik Naggum

“At the beginning of the project, I wasn't certain that I could come up with an engaging storyline and cast of characters in this world, so I had a strong bias toward actually writing, and worrying about research later. In other words, I was afraid that I'd devote a year or two of my life to grinding through Kant and Husserl, then discover that there simply was no novel to be written here.”

World Writing Years Two Character Certain Strong Worry Novel Written This World Projects Research Casts Come Up Bias Engaging Storyline

Author:Neal Stephenson

“But I'm not a small-literary-novel kind of guy, and once I'd developed the world in the first couple of hundred pages, I felt that there was potential here to go on and write an engaging story set in that world. So that's what I did. This probably ruins things both for the people who want small literary novels and for those who want action-packed epics, but anyway, it's what I wrote.”

People World Want Writing Firsts Kind Stories Action Guy Felt Novel Goes On Couple Pages Hundred Ruins Epic Engaging

Author:Neal Stephenson

“Part of the work of writing a novel is to uncover the symmetries or connections that make it whole, which might not reveal itself at first.”

Writing Firsts Whole Might Novel Connections Symmetry

Author:Nicole Krauss

“I write my novels longhand. I love the feeling of writing; I love to see pen on paper. It feels more creative than typing, and it's a more visual process for me - I can picture the entire scene in my head and am merely writing what I see.”

Feels Writing I Can Feelings Process Novel Creative Scene Paper Visuals Pens Typing

Author:Cecelia Ahern

“What you want to do is talk about ideas, you write a novel, you have a lecture about those ideas. Satire and comedy are really the only film mediums where you can get into ideas and have people leave the theater without being moralized.”

People Want Writing Ideas Film Novel Comedy Theater What You Want Mediums Satire Lectures

Author:Justin Simien

“I'd never imagined myself writing at all until I was almost 30. And horror films weren't to my taste, at least the super popular (slasher-y) ones of the day back then. The first novel I ever loved as a kid was Frankenstein, and I was always a crazy Hitchcock and Polanski fan... but I never saw myself - a square spazzy girl from the suburbs - writing anything that would horrify anyone. Or so I thought.”

Writing Firsts Kids Film Girl Novel Saws Crazy Fans Taste Horror Squares Suburbs Horror Film Hitchcock

Author:Karen Walton

“In the case of my second film The Fish Child (El Niño Pez), I had written the novel about 5 years before I made into a film. In the case of The German Doctor I had published the novel a year before I started writing the script, I even had another project to shoot. But I had this idea of the powerful cinematic language from the novel that I couldn't let go of.”

Writing Years Children Made Ideas Film Language Powerful Cases Novel Written Letting Go Projects Doctors Scripts Fishes Cinematic Pez

Author:Lucia Puenzo

“I'm pretty hardcore. I stick exactly to what I'm doing. So I write a novel in one period, and then I'll write stories in another period. I only work on one thing at once, because I'm afraid that I wouldn't finish what I'd started.”

Writing Stories Novel One Thing Periods Sticks Hardcore

Author:T.C. Boyle

“I can't be reading novels when I'm writing a novel, because somebody's voice creeps in. The hardest thing to do is keep the tone and your attitude over the course of a year or however long it takes.But when I'm writing short stories, which I will be doing shortly, I can read anything I like.”

“One of the things that I love about writing novels is that it really doesn't matter what next step you take as long as you're pursuing some intuition or instinct. Of course, then, intuitions or instincts don't make for great novels, but they often make for good first drafts.”

Writing Firsts Long Matter Courses Next Steps Novel Instinct Intuition Next Steps Great Novels

Author:Jonathan Safran Foer

“Conspiracies and all the theories of conspiracy are a part of the canon of fakes. And I'm involved, in all of my writings, the theoretical ones as well as the novels, with the production of fakes.”

Writing Wells Novel Theory Involved Productions Fake Conspiracy Theoretical Canon

Author:Umberto Eco

“It was really a means-of-production problem. It costs so much to make films. With a novel, you can write the whole thing on a ream of paper from Staples for $4.”

Writing Mean Whole Problem Film Novel Cost Paper Productions Staples

Author:Ruth Ozeki

“When I start writing novels, I go into them with a spirit of inquiry, rather than to substantiate prejudices I had in the beginning. If you don't do that, you can't write good characters.”

Ifs Writing Character Spirit Novel Prejudice Inquiry Good Character

Author:Ruth Ozeki

“That's the difference between a real journal and one that's invented for a novel. A novel journal has to be manipulated so someone reading it can have enough comprehension, which means the person writing it would've had to have a sense of a someday-audience.”

Writing Mean Persons Real Enough Reading Differences Novel Audience Someday Journal Comprehension

Author:Cris Mazza

“As much as I revere great writing, and am still humbled by it, literary activities are no longer esoteric to me. When I read a great novel - something that I could never have written myself - I'm still looking at it a little bit like a technician.”

Writing Littles Stills Bits Novel Written Activity Little Bit Esoteric Great Writing Technicians Great Novels

Author:Jonathan Lethem

“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

“Most of us start from that position of irony now and what I wanted to do - really felt like I had to do if I was going to write another novel - was move towards something like sincerity.”

Ifs Writing Wanted Moving Felt Novel Position Irony Sincerity

Author:Ben Lerner

“I wasn't aware I'd write the novel when I wrote the New Yorker story either. And the narration of their construction in 10:04 is fiction, however flickering.”

Writing Stories Fiction Novel Construction New Yorkers Narration

Author:Ben Lerner

“Experiments with the "as if" of fiction are often more lively in poetry and criticism and other modes of writing than in weak short stories or novels.”

Ifs Writing Stories Fiction Novel Criticism Weak Experiments Short Story Lively

Author:Ben Lerner

“I've often thought I would like to try to write a conventional novel, but I just don't know enough about the real world to write one.”

Knows World Writing Trying Real Enough Novel Real World Conventional

Author:Jim Woodring

“For me writing is an organic process that starts with engaging the language and then thinking about the structure of the novel as you move along. Especially in revision you start to notice correlations. Things come up, not self-consciously, because you're busy feeling your way through sentences and trying to push the language into new places.”

Thinking Way Writing Trying Self Feelings Moving Language Process Novel Structure Busy Come Up Sentences Engaging Revision Correlation New Places

Author:Dana Spiotta

“I think there's a false division people sometimes make in describing literary novels, where there are people who write systems novels, or novels of ideas, and there are people who write about emotional things in which the movement is character driven. But no good novels are divisible in that way.”

People Thinking Way Writing Ideas Sometimes Character Novel Movement Emotional Driven Division Describing Emotional Things

Author:Dana Spiotta

“There's a lot of ignorance about how long it takes to write a novel. There's a lot of ignorance about how long a novel is in your head before you start to write it.”

Writing Long Novel Ignorance

Author:John Irving

“Suppose there were an experience machine that would give you any experience you desired. Superduper neuropsychologists could stimulate your brain so that you would think and feel you were writing a great novel, or making a friend, or reading an interesting book. All the time you would be floating in a tank, with electrodes attached to your brain. Should you plug into this machine for life, preprogramming your life experiences?...Of course, while in the tank you won't know that you're there; you'll think that it's all actually happening...Would you plug in?”

Source: Anarchy, state, and utopia

“When I moved to Los Angeles, I wrote spec screenplays. I was really poor, and I thought I was just gonna do this for a while to make a little money so I could write novels. I thought movies were a second-class art form. I condescended to it - I didn't know enough to know it was really gonna be hard.”

Knows Writing Littles Art Hard Enough Form Poor Class Novel Moved Los Angeles Screenplays Little Money Specs

Author:Stephen Gaghan

“Of course I planned to write the Great American Novel; that lasted about a week, at which point I decided I had nothing to say that could possibly qualify. So I wrote a romance instead.”

Writing Romance Courses Novel Week Decided Great American

Author:Jasmine Cresswell

“Read non-fiction. History, biology, entomology, mineralogy, paleontology. Get a bodyguard and do fieldwork. Find your inner fish. Don't publish too soon. Not before you have read Thomas Mann in any case. Learn by copying, sentence by sentence some of the masters. Copy Coetzee's or Sebald's sentences and see what happens to your story. Consider creative non-fiction if you want to stay in South Africa. It might be the way to go. Never neglect back and hamstring exercises, otherwise you won't be able to write your novel. One needs one's buttocks to think.”

“Since I cant write the greatest American novel, Im going to write the longest American novel.”

Writing Novel Cant

Author:Thomas Steinbeck

“My writing derived from the conviction I conceived during my college years: one should lead one's life as if one were the protagonist of an epic novel, with the outcome predetermined and chapter after chapter of edifying, traumatic, and exhilarating events to be suffered through. Since the end is known in advance, one must try to experience as much as possible in the brief time allotted. Writing is a way of ensuring that you pay enough attention along the way to understand what you see.”

Ifs Way Should Writing Trying Years Ends Enough Pay Attention Known Novel Events College Conviction Outcomes Chapters Epic Exhilarating Protagonists Predetermined Year One College Years

Author:Jeffrey Tayler

“Stuart Rojstaczer writes with enormous wit, style and empathy, and The Mathematician's Shiva is a big-hearted, rollickingly funny novel that's impossible to put down. A tremendous debut.”

Writing Bigs Novel Impossible Style Empathy Wit Enormous Mathematician Hearted Debut Shiva

Author:Molly Antopol

“I'm one of those writers who started off writing novels and came to writing short stories later, partly because I didn't have the right ideas, partly because I think that short stories are more difficult. I think learning to write short stories also made me attracted toward a paring down of the novel form.”

Thinking Writing Made Ideas Stories Form Difficult Novel Short Story Right Ideas Writing Short Writing Short Stories

Author:Julian Barnes

“One of the great things about writing a series is that with each book, the novel is meant to stand alone on its own legs, but also to bring along those loyal readers who become attached to the characters over the years.”

Writing Years Book Character Novel Reader Series Legs Great Things Loyal Stand Alone

Author:Linda Fairstein

“When you're writing a novel, you're still telling a story. But you're telling it very differently. It's a craft like anything else.”

Writing Stills Stories Novel Crafts

Author:Howard Gordon

“What I like to write about is stuff I know. I don't think I could write a novel. I don't think I have it in me to come up with those kinds of characters.”

Thinking Knows Writing Kind Character Stuff Novel Come Up

Author:Carol Burnett

“I don’t like to make strong statements. I want to write strong novels … I keep my deep radical things for my novels.”

Want Writing Strong Novel Statements Radical

Author:Orhan Pamuk

“There isn't, even now, a great tradition of novel-writing in Afghanistan. Most of the literature is in the form of poetry.”

Writing Form Literature Novel Tradition Afghanistan Novel Writing

Author:Khaled Hosseini

“The experience of writing 'The Kite Runner' is one I will always think back on with fondness. There is an energy, a romance in writing the first novel that can never be duplicated again.”

Thinking Writing Firsts Romance Energy Novel Runners Kites Fondness

Author:Khaled Hosseini

“I'm writing novels because I found something I love because I tried it. Don't be afraid to shake it up.”

Writing Found Love Is Novel Shakes Shake It Up

Author:Adriana Trigiani

“When I am writing fiction, I believe I am much better organized, more methodical - one has to be when writing a novel. Writing poetry is a state of free float.”

Writing Believe States I Believe Fiction Novel Organized Poetry Is Floats Novel Writing Writing Fiction Writing Poetry Methodical

Book:Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood

Source: Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood

“The most powerful words in English are 'Tell me a story,' words that are intimately related to the complexity of history, the origins of language, the continuity of the species, the taproot of our humanity, our singularity, and art itself. I was born into the century in which novels lost their stories, poems their rhymes, paintings their form, and music its beauty, but that does not mean I had to like that trend or go along with it. I fight against these movements with every book I write.”

“I really do believe that chance favours a prepared mind. Wallace Stegner, who was one of my teachers when I was at Stanford, preached that writing a novel is not something that can be done in a sprint. That it's a marathon. You have to pace yourself. He himself wrote two pages every day and gave himself a day off at Christmas. His argument was at the end of a year, no matter what, you'd got 700 pages and that there's got to be something worth keeping.”

Writing Years Mind Believe Two Ends Matter Done Chance Novel Teacher Pages Argument No Matter What Prepared Pace Favour Marathon Days Off Sprint Stanford Pace Yourself

Author:Scott Turow

“If you want to write a novel, it's the Divine mind wanting to express.”

Ifs Want Writing Mind Novel Divine

Author:Julia Cameron

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. Sometimes you run over a drunk who's lain down and fallen asleep on the warm pavement. I mean, do you keep going, or what?”

Writing Mean Sometimes Running Night Novel Car Down And Warm Driving Drunk Fallen Keep Going Pavement

Author:E. L. Doctorow

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