Novel Quotes - Page 10

• I say sometimes that I'm a poet but I work in the novel form. That's what I do. That's what makes sense to me. I think of myself as someone who makes particular interventions into genres that already exist.

  Douglas A. Martin

  Thinking, Sometimes, Poet

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• One demonstrable effect this type of work can have is in its viral promulgation. Take Kathy Acker for example: her work exists mainly through academic channels. Students are exposed to her novels, and some read her, then, on their own, but some also go to grad school: teach her, write about her, keep her going.

  Davis Schneiderman

  Writing, School, Students

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• In general, I think every novel is a political novel, in that every novel is an argument about how the world works, who has power, who has a voice, what we should care about. But political novels can be boringly polemical if they end up being too black and white, too one dimensional, like war is bad, killing people is wrong.

  Micah Perks

  War, Black And White, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I'm inspired by watching and listening to people. For example, my first novel, The Scale, came to life after I overheard two women discussing their struggle with their weight at the gym.

  Mika

  Struggle, People, Listening

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• I don't know why one author writes westerns while another writes detective novels. You don't know why. You go where the intensity is. I feel most comfortable writing about monsters. It's possible that I feel like a monster myself. Or maybe it's because we all have a monster inside of us, a vampire, a ghost, a witch or a werewolf. You do it because it works and it feels really right and authentic.

  Anne Rice

  Writing, Vampire, Ghost

  Source: chicagoist.com

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• The thing that made me turn more towards writing was realizing how hard it was going to be to get a singular vision on film and how much more control I would have if I were writing novels.

  Dan Chaon

  Writing, Vision, Realizing

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• As someone who writes novels that are often set in other periods of time or other ages or other landscapes, there's a certain element of research I have to do, and often, the more laconic people are, the more interesting they become.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Writing, People, Interesting

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• When I began to write novels, I wanted to keep that element of interaction with the reader that exists in poetry, not just for the reader to be shepherded from A to B to C to D but to participate, and the less you say sometimes, the better it is. You know, it's the way when someone speaks very quietly, you move forward so you can listen more carefully.

  Michael Ondaatje

  Moving, Writing, Sometimes

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• The distinction between East and West is that the Western novel is very organized, it's very logical, there's a logical progression, there's a chronological progression, and there's a safety in that. Whereas if you look at Japanese film, it is made up of collage or bricolage, it is made up of lists, and suddenly when you stand back from the lists you begin to see the pattern of a life.

  Donald Richie

  Safety, Film, Progression

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• I would not describe myself as a political writer except in the sense that the personal is political, which is something that I do strongly believe. And in that sense American Gods is a very personal novel and a political novel. I was trying to describe the experience of coming to America as an immigrant, the experience of watching the way that America tends to eat other cultures.

  Neil Gaiman

  Believe, Political, Trying

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• With American Gods I was trying very, very consciously - there was a level at which it was a little like trying to write a novel in French - you know, "this novel is to be written in American."

  Neil Gaiman

  Writing, Trying, American Gods

  Source: www.raintaxi.com

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• I'm surprised at some technological development, and the realization that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I think the CD-ROM is the best example of that. The idea of having a whole symphony, or opera, or novel in a little piece of plastic is pretty amazing.

  Arthur C. Clarke

  Technology, Thinking, Magic

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Most difficult thing in the world, to write a play. Do you know the story of Shaw at the Fabian society? H.G. Welles said "I'm terribly sorry I've missed the last five meetings, I've been terribly busy, I'm engaged in writing a scientific pamphlet on the effects of radioactivity in 1984 and I've produced a novel, and various pieces of science fiction to do, and I've had a bit of personal trouble, and I had my copy to bring out for the newspaper." Shaw leapt up and said, "I've not missed one meeting, and I have written a play!" hardest thing in the world. If it were easy they'd all be at it.

  Peter O'Toole

  Sorry, Writing, World

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Until you can become accountable to yourself and only yourself, you're probably not going to live a fully vital life. So much of literature is about accountability. The moral issues in most novels are about people becoming responsible for their own behaviour. One of the forces against being responsible for your own behaviour is the force of the past, in the way that the past tries to form you.

  Richard Ford

  Past, People, Accountability

  Source: www.macleans.ca

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• I think one of the problems in determining the ending for a television series is that you don't know how long the show is gonna last. Particularly because we were in the unique position of adapting Tom's Perrotta novel The Leftovers, it always felt like the first season was gonna end with the end of Tom's novel, and then we would figure things out from there and look back.

  Damon Lindelof

  Unique, Thinking, Long

  "‘The Leftovers’ Season 3: Damon Lindelof & Tom Perrotta on the Final Episodes, Reddit’s Influence on Storytelling". Interview with Christina Radish, collider.com. May 1, 2017.

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• About writing I learned that always, always, always it's necessary to haunt your settings. I'm a big researcher. All my fiction is based on tons of digging. But the vital importance of actually traveling to the settings of a novel really hit me. And it's not just the setting details, not just the visuals and other sensory data, that will pop. You'll find surprising clues that swerve your story in whole new, deeper, surprising, more organic ways.

  Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  Writing, Clue, Importance

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Dreamlike sequencing is perhaps one of João Gilberto Noll's most remarkable triumphs in Quiet Creature on the Corner. I translated the novel and still it remains a mystery as to how exactly how this works. Noll thinks more like an experimental filmmaker than a novelist.

  Adam Morris

  Thinking, Quiet, Mystery

  Source: therumpus.net

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• The Brazilian national identity is not one of João Gilberto Noll primary concerns. This does not mean social critique is absent: race, gender, and class relations are considered in Quiet Creature. And these are universal relational matters, not necessarily particular to any country. Some critics have commented that understanding the specific Brazilian political context of the novel is helpful for reading Quiet Creature. This may be true, but it's not prerequisite for understanding it.

  Adam Morris

  Country, Reading, Mean

  Source: therumpus.net

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• I always thought that I could write a novel. In my case, it was misguided. I do believe that the best nonfiction is not "literary journalism," a misleading term, but rather journalism that asks the questions that serious literature asks. It's storytelling that happens to be true. So I don't think it was a missed opportunity. After awhile you learn what you're really good at. Life is short, so spend time doing that.

  Ron Rosenbaum

  Believe, Writing, Life Is Short

  Source: classic.esquire.com

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• Wilkie Collins was a rival and competitor of Dickens. His novel Moonstone sold more copies at the time than Dickens' last two books. But that meant nothing in the long run. Right now, to be honest, Wilkie Collins is what he deserved to be back then: a footnote, an almost lost memory. And he knew he would become that.

  Dan Simmons

  Running, Memories, Book

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• When I get about five readers I can rub together in one genre, I leave that genre and go somewhere else. And this is due to a vow that I made myself when I started writing - that if I had any success at all, I would not be bound to one form of writing. That I would write what moves me. The only way I can see me surviving and doing more than one book is to present the readers with a Dan Simmons novel, with whatever tropes and protocols from whatever genre I want to borrow them. If that builds a Dan Simmons readership, well then, okay. Otherwise, forget about it. I'd rather drive a truck.

  Dan Simmons

  Moving, Book, Writing

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• A friend of mine had this idea a few years ago. We thought it would be a great way to promote the sport and to put polo in front of a lot more people in an unexpected place: the romance novel. There's a lot of people that care about those kinds of stories, especially women, and it would help people to know what the polo life is all about. It's not just what you see in the newspapers or on Pretty Woman. There's a lot more to it: the time spent in the barn, how much we love the horses, the relationship with the horses and with the family, etc.

  Nacho Figueras

  Sports, Horse, People

  Source: www.harpersbazaar.com

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• The extraordinary thing about comic books and graphic novels is that they cannot exist without the art. If my words disappeared tomorrow, well, whatever. This is a visual medium in which the eye and the mind work together to bear witness to story, to lives.

  Marjorie M. Liu

  Art, Book, Eye

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

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• I started out writing romance novels, and that's a side of publishing that's very female oriented. 99.9% of the writers are women, most of the editors are women, and these are books written for the female gaze. And so my point of view - the way I looked at fandom and publishing and writing - was all about women. So for me that's what was natural, that's what was comfortable. And then I moved over to comics. And all of a sudden it was... Pardon the expression, it was a sausage fest.

  Marjorie M. Liu

  Book, Writing, Romance

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

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• I've seen a tremendous shift especially in indie comics. I see all these young women who are out there creating. They're making these great web comics. Their graphic novels are getting published. They're making all this wonderful art. They're powerful. There's this vital energy about it that's really, really beautiful that years ago I knew existed but I didn't see so clearly.

  Marjorie M. Liu

  Beautiful, Art, Powerful

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

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