1,336 Quotes About Novel

We read novels because we need stories; we crave them; we can’t live without telling them and hearing them. Stories are how we make sense of our lives and of the world. When we’re distressed and go to therapy, our therapist’s job is to help us tell our story. Life doesn’t come with plots; it’s messy and chaotic; life is one damn, inexplicable thing after another. And we can’t have that. We insist on meaning. And so we tell stories so that our lives make sense.

I have only met men like you in novels, men who lived their own idiosyncrasies.

I guess it’s true: it’s difficult for men to understand women.

The big-ass hole, all of the wreckage and mess. I'd done that. Me,

You've got drama too?' 'Doesn't everyone?' 'A side effect of breathing, I guess.

Truth is irrelevant; what matters is what people believe.

The best part of the fiction in many novels is the notice that the characters are imaginary.

As you write your novel, you gradually start thinking like some of your characters in it. And at times the writer may lose himself completely in some character.

Characters of fiction are authors’ children and critics’ neighbors. Even if we perceive them as inadequate, nevertheless, we should appreciate the fact that they were the products of someone’s imagination, however limited that might have been. It’s not often that you come across a book from which you could quote much.