Novelists Quotes - Page 36

• I'm a novelist, I'm not an activist. I'm not a non-fiction writer, I'm not a journalist. I'm not a foodie, I'm not even really an animal person, or an environmentalist. I did the best I could with this, but it's not who I am.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Animal, Who I Am, Fiction

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. November 17, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The novelist, unlike many of his colleagues, makes up a number of word-masses roughly describing himself (roughly: niceties shallcome later), gives them names and sex, assigns them plausible gestures, and causes them to speak by the use of inverted commas, and perhaps to behave consistently.

  E. M. Forster

  Sex, Character, Names

  4 Copy quote

• The novel is a perfect medium for revealing to us the changing rainbow of our living relationships. The novel can help us to live,as nothing else can: no didactic Scripture, anyhow. If the novelist keeps his thumb out of the pan.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Perfect, Rainbow, Thumbs

  D. H. Lawrence (1966). “Selected Poems of D.h. Lawrence”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Money is the necessity that frees us from necessity. Of all novelists in any country, Trollope best understands the role of money. Compared with him even Balzac is a romantic.

  W. H. Auden

  Country, Roles, Balzac

  "Forewords and Afterwords" by W. H. Auden, ("A Poet of the Actual"), (p. 266), 1973.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• And that singular anomaly, the lady novelist--
  I don't think she'd be missed--I'm sure she'd not be
  missed!

  W. S. Gilbert

  Thinking, Anomalies

  The Mikado act 1 (1885)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I could see now that a literary education did not fit one for the popular novelist's trade.Once you had started using words like flavicomous or acroamatic, because you liked the sound of them, you were lost.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Sound, Using Words, Fit

  17 Copy quote

• Possibly the Creator did not make the world chiefly for the purpose of providing studies for gifted novelists; but if He had done so, we can scarcely imagine that He could have offered anything much better in the way of material.

  Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward

  Way, Purpose, Done

  4 Copy quote

• In the compact between novelist and reader, the novelist promises to lie, and the reader promises to allow it.

  Cynthia Ozick

  Lying, Reading, Promise

  Cynthia Ozick (1996). “A Cynthia Ozick Reader”, p.311, Indiana University Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• A great novelist must open the reader's heart, allow the reader to remember the vastness and glory -- and shame and shabbiness -- of what it is to be human.

  Carolyn See

  Heart, Vastness, Remember

  7 Copy quote

• Of all the hot liquors, I regard buttered rum as the worst. I believe that the drinking of it should be permitted only in the "Northwest Passage" and, even there, only by highly imaginative and overenthusiastic novelists.

  David A. Embury

  Drinking, Believe, Hot

  7 Copy quote

• Henry James would have been vastly improved as a novelist by a few whiffs of the Chicago stockyard.

  H. L. Mencken

  Chicago, Has Beens

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.500, Vintage

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The novelist ... must live in paranoia and seek to be one with the world; he must be terrified of experience and hungry for it; he must think himself nothing and believe he is superior to all.

  Norman Mailer

  Believe, Thinking, World

  Norman Mailer (1992). “Advertisements for Myself”, p.184, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Novelists get to direct the perfect films. We get to cast every part. We dress the set exactly as we wish.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Perfect, Wish, Dresses

  Interview with Paul Auster, www.believermag.com. February 2005.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Some of what we read in classical literature is not relative to our condition, but then many women novelists and poets have turned it upside down and told the stories from the other point of view.

  Margaret Drabble

  Views, Stories, Literature

  Interview with Lydia Perović, www.believermag.com.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The more romance novelists that are out there, making romanticized ideas of vampirism for the kids, the more people want to see a real action movie, putting the bad guys where they belong, as the bad guys, and looking for a hero to come along and defend our very souls.

  Corey Feldman

  Real, Hero, Kids

  "Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander Interview LOST BOYS: THE THIRST". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. October 10, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even in an intensely mediated world, in a world that offers at least the illusion of radical self-invention and radical freedom of choice, I as a novelist am drawn to the things you can't get away from. Because much of the promise of radical self-invention, of defining yourself through this marvelous freedom of choice, it's just a lie. It's a lie that we all buy into, because it helps the economy run.

  Jonathan Franzen

  Running, Lying, Self

  Interview with Gregg LaGambina, www.avclub.com. September 1, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The best novelist of my generation is an Italian living in Paris, still working and improving - Italo Calvino.

  Gore Vidal

  Italian, Paris, Generations

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Unfortunately for novelists, real life is getting way too funny and far-fetched.

  Carl Hiaasen

  Real, Way, Life Is

  "Writers on Writing, Carl Hiaasen: Real Life, That Bizarre and Brazen Plagiarist" by Carl Hiaasen, archive.nytimes.com. April 24, 2000.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• For a novelist, it’s kind of an onerous burden to represent an entire culture. That said, I’m in a unique position to speak on behalf of Afghanistan on certain issues that I feel are important, particularly the issue of Afghan refugees.

  Khaled Hosseini

  Unique, Issues, Important

  "Khaled Hosseini, Kabul’s Splendid Son". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. May, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm a novelist at heart. My sole intention is to write the best novel possible. I don't think about the film potential at all.

  Nicholas Sparks

  Writing, Heart, Thinking

  Source: www.cliffsnotes.com

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is however, difficult to make your narratives relative by yourself. A novelists' work is to provide models to make your narratives relative. If you read my novels then you may feel, "I have the same experience as this narrative", or "I have the same idea as this novel". It means that your narrative and mine sympathize, concord and resonate together.

  Haruki Murakami

  Mean, Ideas, Together

  Source: yositeru.blogspot.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I’ve always said to people, "I don’t care what you call me as long as the checks don’t bounce and the family gets fed." But I never saw myself that way. I just saw myself as a novelist.

  Stephen King

  Saws

  "A Rare Interview with Master Storyteller Stephen King". Interview with Ken Tucker, parade.com. May 25, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• More than anything I am a novelist. But for me, an author's job is not only to create linguistically accomplished works. As an author I also want to stimulate discussion.

  Orhan Pamuk

  Jobs, Want, Accomplished

  Source: www.spiegel.de

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• And there are two types of stories. One type is one's own story. The other type is telling the stories of others. Thanks to this genre, writers of nonfiction can now use the tools of the reporter, the points of view and ear for dialog of a novelist, and the passion and wordplay of the poet.

  Lee Gutkind

  Passion, Views, Two

  Source: speechwriting-ghostwriting.typepad.com

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Artists are just entrepreneurs. It's up to them to figure out how or if they can make a monetary profit from their passion − from their calling, as I discussed above. Sometimes they can. Musicians can sell music, even in the face of piracy. Or they can sell their services − concerts, etc. Painters and other artists can profit in similar ways. A novelist could use kickstarter for a sequel or get paid to consult on a movie version.

  Stephan Kinsella

  Passion, Artist, Entrepreneur

  "Stephan Kinsella on the Logic of Libertarianism and Why Intellectual Property Doesn't Exist". Interview with Anthony Wile, www.thedailybell.com. March 18, 2012.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source