Novel Quotes - Page 20

• As a precocious teen I dreamed of being Graham Greene. Well, as it turned out, I never wrote a great novel, sadly, and I never converted to Catholicism, happily, but I did do one thing he did. That is, in middle age I moved to a seaside town and got into a right barney with the local powers-that-be.

  Julie Burchill

  Age, Towns, Middle

  Julie Burchill, Daniel Raven (2007). “Made in Brighton: From the Grand to the Gutter: Modern Britain as Seen from Beside the Sea”, Virgin Books Limited

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• If you have to deal with our friends at ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, it's like a Kafka novel. Files just disappear.

  Jeb Bush

  Ice, Immigration, Enforcement

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• I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.

  A. S. Byatt

  Novelists, Academic, Happens

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• In England, everyone believes if you think, then you don't feel. But all my novels are about joining together thinking and feeling.

  A. S. Byatt

  Believe, Thinking, Feelings

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• It's a luxury to be able to tell a long form story. I love novels, and I love to have a long relationship with characters.

  Jane Campion

  Character, Luxury, Long

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• I got this idea of doing a really serious big work-it would be precisely like a novel, with a single difference: Every word of it would be true from beginning to end.

  Truman Capote

  Fake People, Writing, Reality

  Truman Capote, M. Thomas Inge (1987). “Truman Capote: Conversations”, p.70, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt.

  John le Carre

  Age, Stories, Belts

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• We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as never before, really, has come into its own.

  John le Carre

  Years, Political, Spy

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• My paintings have gotten to be pretty popular and I've taken a little bit more interest in painting the last few years. In fact, my novel that I wrote not too long ago, 'The Hornet's Nest,' I painted the cover picture for it and I do a good bit of painting now.

  Jimmy Carter

  Taken, Long Ago, Years

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• I read novels but I also read the Bible. And study it, you know? And the more I learn, the more excited I get.

  Johnny Cash

  Study, Excited, Knows

  "Johnny Cash: 'I was evil. I really was' - a classic interview from the vaults". Interview with Philip Norman, www.theguardian.com. February 28, 2012.

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• If I'm hanging around too much, my wife and kids say, 'Hey, why don't you go downstairs and start a new novel?'

  Nick Cave

  Kids, Wife, Hey

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• Love is more pleasant than marriage for the same reason that novels are more amusing than history.

  Nicolas Chamfort

  Love Is, Reason, Amusing

  Sébastien-Roch-Nicolas Chamfort (1973). “Chamfort maxims: anecdotes, personalities, letters, historical writings, etc”

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• At least half the mystery novels published violate the law that the solution, once revealed, must seem to be inevitable.

  Raymond Chandler

  Book, Reading, Writing

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• A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Book, Reading, Cat

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• I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.

  Winston Churchill

  Pregnancy, Inspiration, Land

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• You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers 'puzzles.' I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know what it is. It's on the box. And even if I don't, if it's a 5,000-piece puzzle of the 'Mona Lisa', it's not like I put the last piece in and go, 'I had no idea it's the 'Mona Lisa'!'

  Harlan Coben

  Ideas, People, Lasts

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• Let me back up a little and tell you why I prefer writing to real life: You can rewrite. A novel, for example, can be cleaned up, altered, trimmed, improved. Life, on the other hand, is one big messy rough draft.

  Harlan Coben

  Real, Writing, Hands

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• In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In novels, they are leapt upon with fury.

  Harlan Coben

  Real, Coincidence, Fury

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• I don't think you can write novels on the road. You need a certain stability.

  Leonard Cohen

  Writing, Thinking, Needs

  "'I have been satirised as suicidal and self-indulgent' - a classic Leonard Cohen interview from the vaults". Interview with Mike Jahn, www.theguardian.com. November 29, 2011.

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• One of my biggest goals, especially with writing YA novels, is just to have people enjoy reading.

  Lauren Conrad

  Reading, Writing, Goal

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• The novel avoids the sublime and seeks out the interesting.

  Mason Cooley

  Writing, Interesting, Sublime

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• When I do a novel, I don't really use the script, I use the book; when I did Apocalypse Now, I used Heart of Darkness. Novels usually have so much rich material.

  Francis Ford Coppola

  Book, Heart, Darkness

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• If you write a good action sequence well in a novel, you're already writing it for film, because the only way to do it well is to use some of the same tricks. They're rhetorical, not visual, but it's the same move.

  Justin Cronin

  Moving, Writing, Use

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• For me, a novel is always the result of my attempt to impose myself on raw circumstances. It is a concrete form of lived experience.

  Rachel Cusk

  Form, Results, Circumstances

  "Keeping it in the family" by Rachel Cusk, www.theguardian.com. August 12, 2006.

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• I've read all of Sarah Waters's novels which have been translated into Korean.

  Park Chan-wook

  Water, Korean, Has Beens

  "On my radar: Park Chan-wook". Interview with Corinne Jones, www.theguardian.com. February 23, 2013.

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