Novel Quotes - Page 23

• Every year the literary press praises dozens if not hundreds of novels to the skies, asserting explicitly or implicitly that these books will probably not be suffering water damage in the basements of their authors' houses 20 years from now. But historically, anyway, that's not the way the novelistic ecology works.

  Lev Grossman

  Book, Years, Sky

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• I read a lot of literary theory when I was in graduate school, especially about novels, and the best book I ever read about endings was Peter Brooks' 'Reading for the Plot. '

  Lev Grossman

  Reading, Book, School

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• I don't write tracts, I write novels. I'm not a preacher, I'm a fiction writer.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Writing, Fiction, Preacher

  "Ursula K. Le Guin: Still Battling the Powers That Be". Wired interview, www.wired.com. July 25, 2012.

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• If you enjoy math and you write novels, it's very rare that you'll get a chance to put your math into a novel. I leapt at the chance.

  Mark Haddon

  Writing, Math, Chance

  "The Curiously Irresistible Literary Debut of Mark Haddon". www.powells.com. October 10, 2006.

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• I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad.

  Mark Haddon

  Children, Book, Latter

  "B is for bestseller" by Mark Haddon, www.theguardian.com. April 11, 2004.

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• As to the number of novels I've abandoned... I shudder to think. I have thrown away five completed novels, and that's a gruesome enough figure. But not necessarily a waste of effort.

  Mark Haddon

  Thinking, Numbers, Effort

  "'I'm flattered, amazed, deeply moved and sometimes a little dizzy'". The Guardian interview, www.theguardian.com. February 2, 2004.

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• A reader should encounter themselves in a novel, I think.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Thinking, Encounters, Should

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• For me, writing a novel is like solving a puzzle. But I don't intend my novels as puzzles. I intend them as invitations to dance.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Writing, Invitations, Puzzles

  "Mohsin Hamid on writing The Reluctant Fundamentalist" by Mohsin Hamid, www.theguardian.com. May 13, 2011.

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• If it takes you seven years to write each novel, you need a patron. And I would rather have my corporate self as my patron than any arts council or bestower of grants.

  Mohsin Hamid

  Art, Writing, Self

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• I was a political journalist; I came to writing novels through an interest in politics and power.

  Robert Harris

  Writing, Political, Interest

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• Whether or not you agree with Ayn Rand - and I have certain issues with some of her beliefs - the woman can tell a story. I mean, the novel as an art form is just in full florid bloom in 'Atlas Shrugged.' It's an unbelievable story. The characters are so compelling, and what she's saying is mind-expanding.

  Anne Hathaway

  Art, Character, Mean

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• 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.

  Carl Hiaasen

  Real, Writing, Thinking

  "THE WAY WE LIVE NOW: 7-25-04: QUESTIONS FOR CARL HIAASEN; Miami Voice". Interview with Deborah Solomon, www.nytimes.com. July 25, 2004.

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• I will say that there is an inordinate amount of medicine in my novels, especially the first one. There are a lot of medical things that happen. A hip fracture, three different kinds of lung cancer, pneumonia, blood poisoning, and so on.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Cancer, Pneumonia, Blood

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• I give novels as gifts, and there is nothing I like to receive more as a gift.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Giving

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

  Khaled Hosseini

  Writing, Literature, Tradition

  Interview with James Mustich, www.csmonitor.com. November 24, 2008.

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• 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.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Writing, Thinking, Romance

  "GeekDad Interview: Khaled Hosseini, Author of The Kite Runner". Interview with Tony Sims, www.wired.com. September 30, 2011.

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• It's with bad sentiments that one makes good novels.

  Aldous Huxley

  Writing, Sentiments

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• I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story.

  John Irving

  Character, Stories, Fans

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• I never know when I finish the novel I am writing which will be the next novel out of the station.

  John Irving

  Writing, Next, Stations

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• There's no reason you should write any novel quickly.

  John Irving

  Writing, Reason, Should

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• Whatever I write, no matter how gray or dark the subject matter, it's still going to be a comic novel.

  John Irving

  Writing, Dark, Matter

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• And I don't want to begin something, I don't want to write that first sentence until all the important connections in the novel are known to me. As if the story has already taken place, and it's my responsibility to put it in the right order to tell it to you.

  John Irving

  Taken, Responsibility, Writing

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• I had been a student in Vienna, and one of the neat little things I had found out was about that zoo. It was a good debut novel for me to have published. I was 26 or 27 when it was published. I already had a kid and would soon have a second.

  John Irving

  Zoos, Kids, Vienna

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• I'm not nearly smart enough or imaginative enough to tackle the novel form. Never happen.

  Mary Karr

  Smart, Enough, Form

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• I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Play, Backgrounds, Theatrical

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