Best Novelists Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 8

“But in general, for the purposes of most novelists, the number of objects genuinely necessary for. . .describing a scene will be found to be very small.”

Purpose Found Numbers Objects Scene Novelists Describing

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“I'm a novelist. I think fiction is important or I wouldn't be doing it, but most of it's bad.”

Thinking Important Fiction Novelists

Author:Dale Peck

“The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies.”

Artist Poet Benefits Painter Novelists Extensions

Book:The Essays of George Eliot: Top Novelist Focus

Source: The Essays of George Eliot: Top Novelist Focus

“The great European novel started out as entertainment, and every true novelist is nostalgic for it. In fact, the themes of those great entertainments are terribly serious-think of Cervantes!”

Thinking Facts Novel Serious Entertainment Novelists Theme Nostalgic Very True

Author:Milan Kundera

“A novelist should make you realize nothing is stable. If you don't believe anything with robustness, you're doing something more radical than anything else.”

Ifs Should Believe Realizing Don't Believe Radical Novelists Stable

Author:Howard Jacobson

“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”

“Gods always behave like the people who make them.”

People God Motivational Religion Atheism Atheist African American Novelists Behave

Author:Zora Neale Hurston

“Whatever fame a novelist my attain, it's always kind of an anonymous one. I can go anywhere, and no one knows who I am.”

Knows Kind I Can Fame Who I Am Novelists

Author:Jonathan Kellerman

“Everything written, if it has anything in it, will offend someone, and if the mere taking of offence was to amount to a licence to kill the offender, well the world would be sadly underpopulated of novelists, columnists, bloggers, and the writers of editorials.”

Ifs World Wells Would Be Written Amount Mere Novelists Offence Editorials Offenders Bloggers Columnists

Author:Rex Murphy

“There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.”

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.”

Source: The collected works of Aldous Huxley

“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”

Author:Aldous Huxley

“I think it's really boring, from the point of view of the novelist, to write about yourself. Tedious. But that's very hard to explain to people who really don't believe in the possibility of invention.”

People Thinking Writing Believe Hard Views Possibility Don't Believe Boring Point Of View Invention Novelists About Yourself Tedious

Author:Peter Carey

“If you tell a novelist, 'Life's not like that', he has to do something about it. The poet simply replies, 'No, but I am.'”

Ifs Poet Novelists

Author:Philip Larkin

“Many thousands of people have had the experience of finding the first friend, and it is none the less a wonder; as great a wonder (pace the novelists) as first love, or even greater.”

People Firsts Wonder Greater Findings Novelists Pace First Love

Author:C. S. Lewis

“Sigmund Freud was a novelist with a scientific background. He just didn't know he was a novelist. All those damn psychiatrists after him, they didn't know he was a novelist either.”

Knows Backgrounds Damn Novelists Surfing Psychiatrist Umpires

Author:John Irving

“Everyone assumes that novelists are smarter and more interesting. They're generally smarter and more interesting, but they're often very short. So it kind of cancels all the smart and interesting stuff out.”

Kind Stuff Interesting Smart Assuming Novelists Smarter Interesting Stuff

Author:Liev Schreiber

“That is the dream of all novelists-that one of their characters will become 'somebody.'”

Character Dream Novelists

Author:Jose Saramago

“I like novelists who can create other interesting worlds.”

World Interesting Novelists

Author:Kazuo Ishiguro

“Most of my life, I thought that I would end up a novelist. But then, in New York City, after college, I started a company with a college friend where we made documentary video for museums. In that capacity, I shot, directed, edited and began to learn the vocabulary of film.”

Made Ends Film Cities Company New York College Shots Capacity Video Novelists Museums New York City Documentaries Vocabulary Edited

Author:Jon Spaihts

“For me, film has been good because I'm able to work at top crack, working at something I love to do, in the only literary form in which you can still make money. There are no famous novelists, not as novelists used to be famous.”

Has Beens Stills Able Film Form Used Used To Be Making Money Novelists Cracks

Author:William Monahan

“A historian may be an artist too, and a novelist is a historian, the preserver, the keeper, the expounder, of human experience.”

Humans May Artist Novelists Historian Human Experience Keepers

Book:Heart of Darkness

Source: Heart of Darkness

“Of Dickens' style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky, ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules... No young novelist should ever dare to imitate the style of Dickens.”

Should Young Speak Impossible Style Praise Dare Novelists Defiance Dickens

Book:An autobiography

Source: An autobiography

“I was a novelist before I was a TV screenwriter. Actually, as a kid, I think I'd always wanted to be a writer, but never thought that I would be one.”

Thinking Would Be Kids Wanted Tvs Novelists Screenwriters

Author:Ben Richards

“I write about life as it exists within houses and on the streets. And there's nothing, hopefully, in any of my characterizations or in any of my plottings or in any of my valuations that doesn't ring true to life. I'm a novelist. I'm not a theoretician.”

Writing House Streets Rings Hopefully Novelists True Life Characterization Valuation

Author:Richard Grossman

“Salvation is an individual relationship with God. I've always considered myself to be a devotional poet, and I consider myself to be a devotional novelist.”

Individual Poet Salvation Novelists Relationship With God Devotional

Author:Richard Grossman

“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life.”

Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

“If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they're yours; if they don't they never were.”

Ifs Love Inspirational Marriage Moving On Novelists Breakup Being In Love Love Someone Loving Someone Losing A Loved One If You Love Someone Losing Love If You Really Love Someone Love Coming Back

Author:Richard Bach

“Even when I was living below the poverty line as a novelist, I was still living better than 99.5% of the human population of the world. But in my little, soft realm of trying to amuse a few dozen middle-class people with my books and articles, I did struggle to survive in my own way.”

People World Way Trying Humans Littles Stills Book Lines My Own Class Poverty Struggle Middle Population Novelists Realms Middle Class Articles Dozen Human Population Living Better

Author:Jonathan Ames

“I'm a natural novelist. I'm interested in the person and the group, and how they mesh. And one of the ways I don't want them to mesh is for the person to be subsumed into the group.”

Way Want Persons Natural Groups Novelists Mesh

Author:Jane Smiley

“I tried to make guitars that were close to what my heroes played. That's the way it's done. My experience is that you have to do it like a musician. You have to learn the language before you can learn to be a novelist.”

Way Done Language Hero Musician Guitar Novelists My Hero

Author:Paul Reed Smith

“Americans would have a right to go to war with the Iraqis if we could name one author from Iraq. It disturbs me that we're going to war with somebody we know absolutely nothing about. Name one Iraqi poet, one Iraqi woman activist, one Iraqi singer. Name one Iraqi novelist. You can't. And how can you go kill someone you don't know anything about?”

Ifs Knows War Names Poet Iraq Singers Novelists Activist Absolutely Nothing Going To War

Author:Jimmy Santiago Baca

“Anyone can love a rose, but it takes a lot to love a leaf.”

Love Wisdom Difficult Wise Words Words Of Wisdom Rose True Love Novelists Leafs Meaning Of Love Unlovable Love Actually

Author:Tom Flynn

“We may, without offending any laws of good taste, require of an architect, as we do of a novelist, that he should be not only correct, but entertaining.”

Should May Law Taste Novelists Architect Entertaining Good Taste Offending

Book:On the Nature of Gothic Architecture: And Herein of the True Functions of the Workman in Art ...

Source: On the Nature of Gothic Architecture: And Herein of the True Functions of the Workman in Art ...

“The best moments involve a loss of control. It's a kind of rapture, and it can happen with words and phrases fairly often - completely surprising combinations that make a higher kind of sense, that come to you out of nowhere. But rarely for extended periods, for paragraphs and pages - I think poets must have more access to this state than novelists do.”

Thinking Kind States Moments Happens Loss Poet Higher Periods Pages Access Combination Novelists Phrases Surprising Paragraph Rapture Best Moments

Author:Don DeLillo

“In high school, I wanted to be an actress. Until I got to college and took some creative writing courses. Then I decided I wanted to become a novelist.”

Writing Wanted School Courses Creative College High School Decided Actresses Novelists Creative Writing

Author:Meg Cabot

“Michel Houellebecq is the most interesting, provocative and important European novelist of my generation. Period. No one else comes close. He has written two or maybe three great books, and his latest, The Map and the Territory, is one of them.”

Two Important Book Three Interesting Written Generations Periods Novelists Maps Territory Most Interesting My Generation Provocative Great Book

Author:Bret Easton Ellis

“What terrorists gain, novelists lose.”

Loses Gains Terrorist Novelists

Book:Mao II

Source: Mao II

“Being called a 'bad citizen' is a compliment to a novelist, at least to my mind. That's exactly what we ought to do.”

Mind Ought Citizens Novelists Compliment

Author:Don DeLillo

“The biggest book for me, when I was fifteen, was Crime and Punishment, which I read in a kind of fever. When I put it down, I thought, if this is what novels are then I want to be a novelist.”

Ifs Want Kind Book Novel Crime Punishment Novelists Fifteen Fever Crime And Punishment

Author:Paul Auster

“As a poet or a novelist or a painter, you are pushing yourself all the time, always looking for a new way to approach something, challenging yourself and never, never trying to write the same book twice.”

Way Writing Trying Book Challenges Poet Approach Painter Novelists Pushing New Ways Push Yourself Challenge Yourself

Book:Conversations with Paul Auster

Source: Conversations with Paul Auster

“When young people say I want to be a novelist, I'd say, think very carefully about it. There will be very few rewards, you probably won't make any money, you probably won't become famous, and you will spend your whole life locked up in a room by yourself worrying about how to survive.”

People Thinking Want Whole Young Rooms Worry Rewards Whole Life Novelists Locked Locked Up

Author:Paul Auster

“I sometimes feel that my goal as a novelist would be to write a novel in which the language was so transparent that the reader would forget that language was the medium of understanding. Of course that's not possible, but it's some sort of idealized goal.”

Feels Writing Sometimes Would Be Courses Language Understanding Goal Forget Novel Reader Mediums Novelists Transparent

Author:Paul Auster

“Because I'm a novelist, I think in terms of structure. The way I keep going is through structure. It's what inspires me and pushes me through.”

Thinking Way Term Inspire Structure Novelists Keep Going

Author:Jess Walter

“Which is mightily ironic since one of the most common criticisms of American women novelists (it's a load of crap but it gets bandied about a good bit) is that they don't write the "big" stories about "universal" or "worldly" concepts...Jesus. Um, when we do? We get told to get back in the kitchen and bedroom - go back to writing about love-y wife-y mother-y things.”

Writing Stories Bigs Mother Jesus Bits Common Wife Concepts Criticism Universal Novelists Kitchen Get Back Ironic Load Bedroom Crap Worldly American Woman

Author:Lidia Yuknavitch

“I did want to become a novelist, but the program at Waseda was pretty intense in terms of language requirements - two hours of English and four hours of Chinese. I thought, what do I need this for? So I stopped going to class.”

Want Needs Two Language Term Hours Class Four Program Intense Chinese Novelists Requirements

Author:Hirokazu Koreeda

“The professions of novelist and journalist are very separate. As a novelist, you are ultimately working for yourself. Yes, you need the approval of a publisher and an audience, but what is valued in fiction writing - style, individual voice, insight - is scorned by the editor who is combing through your newspaper article.”

Needs Writing Individual Voice Fiction Audience Style Insight Profession Newspapers Journalist Novelists Editors Articles Approval Publishers Fiction Writing Writing Style Scorned

Author:Jon Weisman

“Novelists may be able to seek advice from readers and editors, but in the end, it is up to them to get the book right.”

May Book Ends Able Advice Reader Novelists Editors

Author:Jon Weisman

“I think having a coach or an editor or whatever the novelist's producer is could help. If you finish a chapter and you turn it in to him, and he or she said, "That was pretty good, it might go better." Maybe that's what I'll try to find.”

Ifs Thinking Trying Said Helping Might Turns Coaches Producers Novelists Editors Chapters

Author:Craig Finn

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Novelists Quotes