Quotessence
Home / Topics / Novelists Quotes

Novelists Quotes

Browse 1269 quotes about Novelists.

Related topics

WritingPeopleNovelThinkingIfsWorldBookKnowsWayPoetWantFictionMenStoriesLifeHumansInspirationalPlaywrightCharacterEssayistsTryingLiteratureReaderFirstsLoveRealMeanShouldKindPersonsPhilosopherMayWellsDifferentLongReadingBelieveFactsSaidSometimesWrittenYearsFeelsTwoChildrenFunnyGivingArtArtistDoeHas BeensHeartHistorianLyingFormIdeasStillsImaginationNeedsScreenwritersWise WordsImportantYoungAbleMadePoliticalWould BeFamous WomenHappensHardHumoristsLanguageLittlesMightMindPainterUnderstandingEndsFilmJobsJournalistLooksRealityAgeDreamReasonRememberSeemsSelfTimeUseWantedWisdomCenturyEnoughI CanPastRunningTodayCertainmore

Novelists Quotes

“Radio is the medium that most closely approximates the experience of reading. As a novelist, I find it very exciting to be able to reach people who might not ever pick up one of my books, either because they can't afford it (as is often the case in Latin America), or because they just don't have the habit of reading novels.”

PeopleBookMightAbleAmericaReadingCasesNovelHabitPicksExcitingRadioMediumsNovelistsLatinLatin AmericaReading Novels
Author:Daniel Alarcon
Create image

“Radio, or at least the kind of radio we're proposing to do, can cut through that. It can reach people who would otherwise never hear your work, and of course I find that very notion inspiring. Radio stories are powerful because the human voice is powerful. It has been and will continue to be the most basic element of storytelling. As a novelist (and I should note that working my novel is the first thing I do in the morning and the very last thing I do before I sleep), shifting into this new medium is entirely logical. It's still narrative, only with different tools.”

PeopleShouldFirstsHumansKindHas BeensStillsDifferentStoriesLastsCoursesVoiceSleepPowerfulMorningNovelCuttingElementsToolsNotesNotionRadioStorytellingMediumsNarrativeNovelistsLogicalShiftingHuman Voice
Author:Daniel Alarcon
Create image

“I always have done work on mythic relations since I started writing. I really want to be a novelist, or at least a writer of imaginative work... I do try to make my critical studies imaginative and try to write them in ways that are more like literature than philosophy, but I have disappointed myself because I am still so wedded to criticism.”

WayWantWritingTryingStillsDonePhilosophyLiteratureStudyCriticismRelationCriticalNovelistsDisappointedImaginative
Author:Marina Warner
Create image

“I was once doing a question and answer period with the novelist Jane Smiley in a bookstore and someone asked us what our processes were and Jane said hers and then I said mine and Jane said, "Well, if I had a student like that I'd force him never to write like that again because you could never write a novel in the way that you write poetry."”

IfsWayWritingWellsSaidForceProcessAnswersNovelStudentsMinesPeriodsNovelistsJaneBookstoresQuestions And AnswersSmiley
Author:Edward Hirsch
Create image

“I just read about John Le Carre, the great spy novelist. He had an absolutely miserable childhood. His mother deserted him when he was young. His father was a playboy and a drunk. He was shifted around to many different homes. He knew he was a writer when he was about nine, but he was dyslexic. So here was a person with an absolutely messed-up childhood and a symptom that prevented him from doing what he wanted to do most. Yet that very symptom was part of the calling. It forced him to go deeper.”

PersonsDifferentHomeWantedYoungMotherFatherChildhoodCallingDeeperNineDrunkMiserableNovelistsSymptomsSpyMessed UpPlayboyDesertedDyslexic
Author:James Hillman
Create image

“Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.”

KnowsFunnySpiritualAsksWishWomenAnswersAdviceHumorousEmpowermentAskingProfoundWittyIronyNovelistsWomen EmpowermentBad AssEmpoweredEmpowering WomenMeaningful LifeInsperationalGood AdviceBeing StrongPowerful WomenSassyBest AdviceEmpowered WomenFamous InspirationalWomen Empowering WomenFunny But TrueIt Is What It IsFunny MotivationalBeing A Strong WomanI Am WomanInteresting LifeStrong Powerful WomenInconvenient TruthStrong GirlFunny Strong WomenFunny ThoughtsFear Of FlyingFaveKickass WomenWise LifeMost AwesomeSpiritual AdviceAsking For Advice
Author:Erica Jong
Create image

“Since I was a kid. I had this series by Ballantine Books about the history of World Wars I and II. In my 20s, it was the Vietnam War literature of novelists like Tim O'Brien, Philip Caputo, and Tobias Wolff, and then nonfiction such as "A Bright Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan and "The Best and Brightest" by David Halberstam . Those are the two best histories of Vietnam.”

WorldTwoBookWarKidsLyingLiteratureShiningSeriesNovelistsWar Of The WorldsVietnamNonfictionWorld War IVietnam WarPhilipTobiasTim O BrienBest History
Author:George Packer
Create image

“When you take a child who's hollering like hell, sit him on your knee, and say "once upon a time", you stop him hollering. As long as you go on telling him a story, he will listen. Novelists who neglect this fundamental effect do so at their peril. They become what is known as the experimental novelist, and an experimental novel is not really a novel at all.”

ChildrenLongStoriesKnownNovelHellEffectsGoes OnFundamentalsKneesNovelistsNeglectPerilOnce Upon A Time
Author:William Golding
Create image

“When I was fifteen I wrote seven hundred pages of an incredibly bad novel - it's a very funny book I still like a lot. Then, when I was nineteen I wrote a couple hundred pages of another novel, which wasn't very good either. I was still determined to be a writer. And since I was a writer, and here I was twenty-nine years old and I wasn't a very good poet and I wasn't a very good novelist, I thought I would try writing a play, which seems to have worked out a little better.”

WritingTryingYearsLittlesStillsBookPlaySeemsNovelPoetCouplePagesHundredTwentiesSevenVery GoodDeterminedNineNovelistsFifteenNine YearsNineteenFunny Book
Book:Conversations with Edward Albee
Create image

“If you want to understand human beings, there are plenty of people to go to besides psychologists.... Most of these people are incapable of communicating their knowledge, but those who can communicate it are novelists. They are good novelists precisely because they are good psychologists.”

PeopleIfsWantHumansScienceUnderstandingHuman BeingsCommunicationCommunicatePlentyNovelistsIncapablePsychologistBeing There
Book:Science is a sacred cow
Create image

“I think what saved me, as a writer, is that there are really two breaking points in my life. One was when I was 19 and my mother died, and one was when I was 31 and my first child was born. And that sort of gave me a kind of rebirth that I think has been invaluable to me as a novelist, in terms of seeing the world anew.”

ThinkingWorldFirstsKindChildrenHas BeensTwoMotherTermBornSeeingDiedSavedNovelistsRebirthInvaluableSeeing The WorldMother DiedPoint Break
Author:Anna Quindlen
Create image

“There were several points where I would kind of turn to the book and say, "Get thee behind me." I don't think real novelists do that. But I make a distinction between prose that's very efficiency-minded (like, the minimum I can get away with), versus loosening the screws and letting the words spill out beautifully and so on.”

ThinkingKindI CanBookRealTurnsBehindsTheeNovelistsProseDistinctionGet AwayEfficiencyMinimumVersusScrewsSpills
Author:George Saunders
Create image

“I reluctantly signed up for a journalism major, thinking I needed a fall-back way to make money should my career as a novelist fail to take off. As I started to try on journalism, including doing internships and working at the campus paper, I found I actually liked it. So I started to want to be a journalist.”

ThinkingWayWantShouldTryingFallFoundCareersFailingNeededPaperMajorsIncludingJournalismMaking MoneyJournalistNovelistsCampusFall BackInternships
Author:Kevin Maney
Create image

“From about ninth grade on, I knew I was a writer at heart. I had fantasies of being a great novelist, but I thought that seemed like an iffy way to try to make a living. So I tried journalism while in college, and really liked it. But even in journalism, I've always pursued ways to be somewhat literary, whether writing a column or writing books.”

WayWritingTryingHeartBookFantasyCollegeJournalismNovelistsGradesPursuedColumnsWriting A BookNinth Grade
Author:Kevin Maney
Create image