492 Quotes About Novels

A college president I know keeps three books on his night table: the Bible, the Iliad, and Louis Auchincloss' 1964 novel The Rector of Justin. When I once asked him, "Why the novel?," he responded, "Because it raises questions I cannot answer or ignore, the sort of questions that possess a wisdom apart from answers.

Landscape is to American painting what sex and psychoanalysis are to the American novel.

I avoided my eyes while brushing my teeth, then climbed into bed with a copy of _The Blind Assassin_, because if you're not with the book you want, you might as well want the book you're with.--Melissa Albert, _The Hazel Wood_

Destiny is as it is. Nothing can change it. Accept it before it ruins you.

Her heart and soul had already spoken. They wouldn’t let Lucas go.

I’ll never turn her away, Clyde. She’s my mate. I’ll protect her till my dying breath. I’ll even swallow my pride and ask a favor as momentous as the one I just asked of a man who has done nothing but try to drive a wedge between her and myself.

Don't pick the lawyer who knows the law, pick the lawyer who does lunch with the judge

I have almost completed a long novel, but it is unpublishable until my death and England's.

Different narrative forms naturally lend themselves to different aspects of existence. The novel is ideal for presenting the inner lives of its characters, the play is ideal for showing people in a room talking and movies are ideal for showing large metal objects hurtling through the air.