Novel Writing Quotes

• Novel writing wrecks homes.

  C. S. Forester

  Home, Writing, Wrecks

  17 Copy quote

• The central problem of novel-writing is causality.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Writing, Causality, Problem

  "Discussion". Book by Jorge Luis Borges, 1932.

  16 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

  E. L. Doctorow

  Writing, Night, Journey

  99 Copy quote

• My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

  Anton Chekhov

  Lying, Writing, Stories

  45 Copy quote

• Almost anyone can be an author; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being.

  A. A. Milne

  Success, Writing, Fame

  A. A. Milne “Not That It Matters”, Lulu.com

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• You learn by writing short stories. Keep writing short stories. The money's in novels, but writing short stories keeps your writing lean and pointed.

  Larry Niven

  Writing, Stories, Story Writers

  14 Copy quote

• Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Writing, Long, Insightful

  Letter to Harrison Blake, 16 Nov. 1857 See Pascal 1; Woodrow Wilson 25

  23 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  I love deadlines. I like the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

  Douglas Adams

  Love, Inspirational, Hilarious

  "The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time (Dirk Gently, Book 3)". Book by Douglas Adams, 2002.

  105 Copy quote

  Show source

• There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

  W. Somerset Maugham

  Writing, Real Talk, Story Writers

  44 Copy quote

• It's none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Business, Writing, Thinking

  "With Hemingway". Book by Arnold Samuelson, 1984.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Moving On, Powerful

  FaceBook post by Maya Angelou from Feb 14, 2013

  132 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is perfectly okay to write garbage – as long as you edit brilliantly.

  C. J. Cherryh

  Writing, Long, Garbage

  48 Copy quote

• If you write one story, it may be bad; if you write a hundred, you have the odds in your favor.

  Edgar Rice Burroughs

  Writing, Odds, Stories

  "King of the Jungle" by John J. Miller, reason.com. August/September 1999.

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Book, Reading, Hero

  1905 Heretics, ch.15.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

  Mark Twain

  Pride, Skulls, Prejudice

  8 Copy quote

• Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any.

  Orson Scott Card

  Writing, Past, Ideas

  17 Copy quote

• There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Funny, Witty, Teacher

  Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose "The Nature and Aims of Fiction" (1969)

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day.

  Orson Scott Card

  Writing, Past, Ideas

  7 Copy quote

• I'm a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can't, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

  William Faulkner

  Writing, Trying, Novelists

  "William Faulkner, The Art of Fiction No. 12". Interview with Jean Stein, www.theparisreview.org. 1956.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

  Stephen King

  Writing, Caring, Tools

  Stephen King (2000). “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft”, p.174, Simon and Schuster

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.

  Robert Graves

  Money, Writing, Poetry

  Robert Graves, Frank L. Kersnowski (1989). “Conversations with Robert Graves”, p.71, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• I haven't any right to criticize books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.

  Mark Twain

  Hate, Book, Writing

  53 Copy quote

• Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

  Flannery O'Connor

  Education, Teacher, Women

  Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose "The Nature and Aims of Fiction" (1969)

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within.

  Gustave Flaubert

  Funny Life, Writing, Sound

  17 Copy quote

• A poet can survive everything but a misprint.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Life, Witty

  Oscar Wilde (2016). “Reviews”, p.121, Oscar Wilde

  13 Copy quote

  Show source