Novel Quotes - page 27

Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. (Milan Kundera)
Is a novel anything but a trap set for a hero? View quote
Milan Kundera
He wanted to appear suddenly to her in novel and heroic colors. He wanted to stir her from that casualness she showed toward everything except herself. View quote
F. Scott Fitzgerald
"My destiny is accomplished and I die content.” How often she made such quotations as these, said or felt or was them! For just as many Americans want art to be Life, so this American novelist wanted life to be Art, not seeing that many of the values-though not, perhaps, the final ones-of life and art are irreconcilable; so that her life looked coldly into the mirror that it held up to itself, and saw that it was full of quotations, of data and analysis and epigrams, of naked and shameful truths, of facts: it saw that it was a novel by Gertrude Johnson. View quote
Randall Jarrell
Ruskin says that anyone who expects perfection from a work of art knows nothing of works of art. This is an appealing sentence that, so far as I can see, is not true about a few pictures and statues and pieces of music, short stories and short poems. Whether or not you expect perfection from them, you get it; at least, there is nothing in them that you would want changed. But what Ruskin says is true about novels: anyone who expects perfection from even the greatest novel knows nothing of novels. View quote
Randall Jarrell
Lending a favorite book has its risks; the borrower may not like it. I still don't know a better novel than Crime and Punishment-still, every fourth or fifth borrower returns it unfinished: it depresses him; besides that, he didn't believe it. More borrowers than this return the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past unfinished: they were bored. There is no book you can lend people that all of them will like. View quote
Randall Jarrell
It is rare for a novel to have an ending as good as its middle and beginning... View quote
Randall Jarrell
I only published my first novel at the age of 40. Till then, I wrote short stories. View quote
A. B. Yehoshua
A novel is written not to be judged, but experienced. View quote
Anne Enright
My work is less violent because we tend to write what we want to read... and I'm not that interested in gruesome books. Any violence, to fit in well with a crime novel, has to have compassion. View quote
Ann Cleeves
Reading fiction is important. It is a vital means of imagining a life other than our own, which in turn makes us more empathetic beings. Following complex story lines stretches our brains beyond the 140 characters of sound-bite thinking, and staying within the world of a novel gives us the ability to be quiet and alone, two skills that are disappearing faster than the polar icecaps. (Ann Patchett)
When well told, a story captured the subtle movement of change. If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads. View quote
Ann Patchett
I think the trick of writing a good picture book manuscript is to leave that space for illustration. An illustrated novel can do the same thing. View quote
Mac Barnett
When you need a good laugh, do you reach for a book? I don't. I expect books to move me deeply and submerge me in another reality. So when a novel makes me roar with laughter, it's always a delightful surprise. View quote
Maria Semple
I am writing my second novel for children for Simon and Schuster. View quote
Marlee Matlin
Back in high school, I wrote a novel about a character named Bart Simpson. I thought it was a very unusual name for a kid at the time. I had this idea of an angry father yelling 'Bart,' and Bart sounds kind of like bark - like a barking dog. View quote
Matt Groening
Screenwriting is a much more collaborative effort. When you write a novel, it's just you, with input from your editor. View quote
Meg Cabot
I sometimes feel as if ideas for a novel kind of pop up like numbers in a bingo tumbler, and then they're ready to go. View quote
Meg Wolitzer
I do want to say the process of writing a novel is riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing. View quote
Meg Wolitzer
For me, a novel relying too heavily on a single idea might be a dry, deadly thing unless it possesses an animating force. View quote
Meg Wolitzer
I certainly incorporate facts into my fiction. I take the basic facts from the life of my subject and I pick and choose what to use to construct a really interesting novel. I don't let facts get in the way of my imagination and my exploration of the subject's emotions and relationships. (Melanie Benjamin)
I don't say anything and he casually leans against my desk, picking up the novel that's sitting there. "It's bullshit," he tells me, flicking through it. "There's no such thing as Atticus Finch." I shrug. "It'd be nice if there was, though. View quote
Melina Marchetta
The historical novel gives us perspective on our modern lives and helps us connect with the story, which we are continuing ourselves. View quote
Mary Pope Osborne
I read a blog about this young filmmaker in the Philippines who made a short film, and one of the characters in the film reads my novel and then starts discussing the novel with someone. The idea that my book can inspire another artist and be part of that other artist's work... that's the reason I write. View quote
Miguel Syjuco
A writer should bury his thoughts deep and convey them through the characters in his novel. View quote
Mo Yan