Novel Quotes - Page 21

• I've read every one of Donald Goines' books. So as soon as I heard there was an opportunity for one of his novels to be turned into a movie, I jumped at the opportunity.

  DMX

  Book, Opportunity, Heard

  Interview With Jeff Otto, www.ign.com. March 25, 2004.

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• I like reading novels because it provides insight into human behavior.

  Claire Danes

  Reading, Behavior, Insight

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• I like reading novels because it provides insight into human behavior. I am really interested in feelings and think they are what define us as a species. When you really get it right in acting, it's an act of empathy. You feel less distant from others, and that is really exciting.

  Claire Danes

  Reading, Thinking, Empathy

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• In suspense novels even subplots about relationships have to have conflict.

  Jeffery Deaver

  Suspense Novels, Conflict, Subplots

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• 'Pastoralia' by George Saunders is one of my favorite novels.

  Zooey Deschanel

  My Favorite

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• 'Oscar Wao' for example cohered in a period of terrible distress. All the novels that I wanted to write were not happening.

  Junot Diaz

  Writing, Example, Oscars

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• 'Drown' was always a hybrid book. It's connected stories - partially a story collection but partially a novel. I always wanted the reader to decide which genre they thought the book belonged to more - story, novel, neither, both.

  Junot Diaz

  Book, Stories, Genre

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• I know for a fact that - it's just the way our biases work now in the industry of literature, but certainly a short story collection does not receive the same kind of attention as a novel.

  Junot Diaz

  Facts, Doe, Attention

  "Junot Diaz ‘This Is How You Lose Her:’ WSJ". Interview with Allison Isaac, mosaicmagazine.org. July 18, 2012.

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• My novel, which I had started with such hope shortly after publishing my first book of stories, wouldn't budge past the 75-page mark. Nothing I wrote past page 75 made any kind of sense. Nothing. Which would have been fine if the first 75 pages hadn't been pretty damn cool.

  Junot Diaz

  Book, Past, Stories

  "Battling my way to a Pulitzer Prize novel" by Junot Diaz, www.cnn.com. December 4, 2009.

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• Stories are hard. I have friends who knock out stories on a weekly or monthly basis, like they're running on medicinal-strength Updike. But for me a story is as daunting a prospect as a novel.

  Junot Diaz

  Running, Stories, Bases

  "This Week in Fiction: Questions for Junot Diaz". Interview with Cressida Leyshon, www.newyorker.com. March 15, 2010.

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• Well, when you look at a lot of science fiction novels they're asking questions about power. There are questions about what it means to have power and what are the long-term consequences of power.

  Junot Diaz

  Mean, Asking Questions, Fiction Novels

  "Junot Díaz Aims To Fulfill His Dream Of Publishing Sci-fi Novel With Monstro". "Wired" Interview, www.wired.com. October 3, 2012.

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• Novels are like paintings, specifically watercolors. Every stroke you put down you have to go with. Of course you can rewrite, but the original strokes are still there in the texture of the thing.

  Joan Didion

  Texture, Painting, Strokes

  "Joan Didion, The Art of Nonfiction No. 1". Interview with Hilton Als, www.theparisreview.org. 2006.

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• It makes more sense to write one big book - a novel or nonfiction narrative - than to write many stories or essays. Into a long, ambitious project you can fit or pour all you possess and learn.

  Annie Dillard

  Book, Writing, Long

  Annie Dillard (2016). “The Abundance”, p.85, Canongate Books

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• Novels for me are how I find out what's going on in my own head. And so that's a really useful and indeed critical thing to do when you do as many of these other things as I do.

  Cory Doctorow

  Things To Do, Critical, My Own

  Interview with Richard Koman, archive.oreilly.com. March 4, 2005.

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• A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.

  Emma Donoghue

  Different, Situation, Memoir

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• Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene.

  Emma Donoghue

  Plot, Needs, Planning

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• Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working career than most of his brethren.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Life, Writing, Years

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated)”, p.8381, Delphi Classics

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• If you invent something, you're doing a creative act. It's like writing a novel or composing music. You put your heart and soul into it, and money. It's years of your life, it's your house remortgaged, huge emotional investment and financial investment.

  James Dyson

  Writing, Heart, Emotional

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• "The Lucky One" is at its heart a romance novel, elevated however by Nicholas Sparks' persuasive storytelling. Readers don't read his books because they're true, but because they ought to be true.

  Roger Ebert

  Book, Heart, Romance

  Roger Ebert's review of "The Lucky One", www.rogerebert.com. April 18, 2012.

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• The idea that a book can advise a woman how to capture a man is touchingly naive. Books advising men how to capture a woman are far less common, perhaps because few men are willing to admit to such a difficulty. For both sexes, I recommend a good novel, offering scenarios you might learn from, if only because they reflect a lot of doubt.

  Roger Ebert

  Sex, Book, Men

  Roger Ebert (2012). “Roger Ebert's Movie Yearbook 2013: 25th Anniversary Edition”, p.592, Andrews McMeel Publishing

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• As an adolescent I wrote comic books, because I read lots of them, and fantasy novels set in Malaysia and Central Africa.

  Umberto Eco

  Book, Fantasy Novels, Comic

  "Umberto Eco, The Art of Fiction No. 197". Interview with Azam Zanganeh, www.theparisreview.org. 2008.

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• I feel that I am a scholar who only with the left hand writes novels.

  Umberto Eco

  Writing, Hands, Left Hand

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• I think of myself as a serious professor who, during the weekend, writes novels.

  Umberto Eco

  Writing, Weekend, Thinking

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• Certainly, light fiction exists and encompasses mysteries or second-class romance novels, books that are read on the beach, whose only aim is to entertain. These books are not concerned with style or creativity - instead they are successful because they are repetitive and follow a template that readers enjoy.

  Umberto Eco

  Beach, Book, Creativity

  "The art of creating a legend" by Umberto Eco, www.theguardian.com. July 19, 2002.

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• Does the novel have to deepen the psychology of its heroes? Certainly the modern novel does, but the ancient legends did not do the same. Oedipus' psychology was deduced by Aeschylus or Freud, but the character is simply there, fixed in a pure and terribly disquieting state.

  Umberto Eco

  Hero, Character, Oedipus

  "The art of creating a legend" by Umberto Eco, www.theguardian.com. July 19, 2002.

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