Novel Quotes - Page 26

• Daisy had known the novel was silly even as she had read it, but that had not detracted one bit from her enjoyment.

  Lisa Kleypas

  Silly, Daisies, Enjoyment

  Lisa Kleypas (2009). “Scandal in Spring”, p.29, Harper Collins

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• [Kafka] transformed the profoundly antipoetic material of a highly bureaucratized society into the great poetry of the novel; he transformed a very ordinary story of a man who cannot obtain a promised job . . . into myth, into epic, into a kind of beauty never before seen.

  Milan Kundera

  Jobs, Epic, Men

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• Inside the envelope with the letter was a little Princess Leia action figure USB flash drive. For me to store my novel on, since he was right - I never back up my computer's hard drive. The sight of it - it's Princess Leia in her Hoth outfit, my favorite of her costumes (how had he remembered?) brought tears to my eyes.

  Meg Cabot

  Princess, Eye, Sight

  "Crowning Glory". Book by Meg Cabot, 2009.

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• I am a man and alive. For this reason I am a novelist. And, being a novelist, I consider myself superior to the saint, te scientist, the philosopher, and the poet, who are all great masters of different bits of man alive, but never get the whole hog....Only in the novel are all things given full play.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Men, Play, Novelists

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• Every novel is an attempt to capture time, to weave something solid out of air. The author knows it is an impossible task - that is why he keeps on trying.

  Arthur David Beaty

  Writing, Air, Trying

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• The novels that attract me most are those that create an illusion of transparency around a knot of human relationships as obscure, cruel, and perverse as possible.

  Italo Calvino

  Illusion, Obscure, Knots

  "If On A Winter's Night A Traveller".

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• Compared to a novel, a film is like an economy pizza where there are no olives, no ham, no anchovies, no mushrooms, and all you’ve got is the dough.

  Louis de Bernieres

  Mushrooms, Ham, Olives

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• The door of the novel, like the door of the poem, also shuts. But not so fast, nor with such manic, unanswerable finality.

  Sylvia Plath

  Doors, Manic, Finality

  Sylvia Plath (1994). “Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams”

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• I am inclined to think that as I grow older I will come to be infatuated with the art of revision, and there may come a time when I will dread giving up a novel at all.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Art, Giving Up, Writing

  Joyce Carol Oates, Lee Milazzo (1989). “Conversations with Joyce Carol Oates”, p.66, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Writing's funny, it's like walking down a hall in the dark looking for the light switch, and suddenly you find it, flip it on, and then you discover the hallway you passed through is papered with the novel you've written.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Writing, Dark, Light

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• It was like being in a Jane Austen novel, but one with far less clothing.

  Terry Pratchett

  Austen, Clothings, Jane

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• Whether I like it or not, most of my images of what various historical periods feel, smell, or sound like were acquired well before I set foot in any history class. They came from Margaret Mitchell, from Anya Seton, from M.M. Kaye, and a host of other authors, in their crackly plastic library bindings. Whether historians acknowledge it or not, scholarly history’s illegitimate cousin, the historical novel, plays a profound role in shaping widely held conceptions of historical realities.

  Lauren Willig

  Cousin, Reality, Historical Novels

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• 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.

  Melina Marchetta

  Nice, Bullshit, Say Anything

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• You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.

  Gore Vidal

  Writing, Cities, Perfect

  Gore Vidal, Richard Peabody, Lucinda Ebersole (2005). “Conversations with Gore Vidal”, p.137, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• If, then, you wish to insure the interest of your pupils, there is only one way to do it; and that is to make certain that they have something in their minds to attend with, when you begin to talk. That something can consist in nothing but a previous lot of ideas already interesting in themselves, and of such a nature that the incoming novel objects which you present can dovetail into them and form with them some kind of a logically associated or systematic whole.

  William James

  Philosophy, Educational, Ideas

  William James (2008). “Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals”, p.80, Nuvision Pubns

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• Good novels are not written, they're rewritten!

  Michael Crichton

  Written

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• One of my heroes, G.K. Chesterton, said, "The old fairy tales endure forever. The old fairy tale makes the hero a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling; they startle him because he is normal." Discovering that the modern world can still contain the wonder and strangeness of a fairy tale is part of what my novels are about.

  Regina Doman

  Hero, Adventure, Boys

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• Someone ought to write a novel about me,” said Lebedeva loftily. “I shouldn’t care if they lied to make it more interesting, as long as they were good lies, full of kisses and daring escapes and the occasional act of barbarism. I can’t abide a poor liar.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Lying, Liars, Writing

  Catherynne M. Valente (2011). “Deathless”, p.102, Macmillan

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• Life matters more than any painting, novel, film, or great big diamond.

  Rita Mae Brown

  Life, Matter, Painting

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• Readers understand that the books celebrate female power. In the romance novel, the woman always wins. With courage, intelligence and gentleness she brings the most dangerous creature on the earth, the human male, to his knees.

  Jayne Ann Krentz

  Book, Winning, Romance

  Jayne Ann Krentz (1992). “Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writers on the Appeal of the Romance”, p.5, University of Pennsylvania Press

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• The 21st chapter gives the novel the quality of genuine fiction, an art founded on the principle that human beings change. ----- "A Clockwork Orange Resucked" intro to first full American version 1986

  Anthony Burgess

  Art, Orange, Giving

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• I didn't start running because somebody asked me to become a runner. Just like I didn't become a novelist because someone asked me to. One day, out of the blue, I wanted to write a novel. And one day, out of the blue, I started to run-simply because I wanted to. I've always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I'm wrong, but I won't change.

  Haruki Murakami

  Running, Writing, Blue

  FaceBook post by Haruki Murakami from Aug 21, 2015

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• Sir,’ said Stephen, ‘I read novels with the utmost pertinacity. I look upon them--I look upon good novels--as a very valuable part of literature, conveying more exact and finely-distinguished knowledge of the human heart and mind than almost any other, with greater breadth and depth and fewer constraints.

  Patrick O'Brian

  Heart, Mind, Depth

  Patrick O'Brian (2004). “Master and commander ; Post captain ; H.M.S. Surprise ; The Mauritius command”

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• You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!" Raise your voice -- they won't hear you otherwise -- "I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!" Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything: just hope they'll leave you alone.

  Italo Calvino

  Reading, Winter, Night

  Italo Calvino (2010). “If On A Winter's Night A Traveller”, p.3, Random House

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• Dear Mia, What can I say? I don't know all that much about romance novels, but I think you must be the Stephen King of the genre. Your book is hot. Thanks for letting me read it. Anyone who doesn't want to publish it is a fool. Anyway, since I know it's your birthday, and I also know you never remember to back anything up, here's a little something I made for you. It would be a shame if Ransom My Heart got lost before it ever saw the light of day because your hard drive crashed. See you tonight. Love, Michael

  Meg Cabot

  Kings, Book, Heart

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