492 Quotes About Novels

It isn’t about how many books you read. What counts is the books you re-read.

If typos are God's way of keeping a writer humble, plot holes certainly keeps one on their knees.

Find the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to let them go.

You don't read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.

Some stories have to be written because no one would believe the absurdity of it all.

I believe books should be like a prime rib steak ~ good and thick.

There's nothing like a printed book; the weight, the woody scent, the feel, the look.

I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.

Formerly I believed books were made like this: a poet came, lightly opened his lips, and the inspired fool burst into song – if you please! But it seems, before they can launch a song, poets must tramp for days with callused feet, and the sluggish fish of the imagination flounders softly in the slush of the heart. And while, with twittering rhymes, they boil a broth of loves and nightingales, the tongueless street merely writhes for lack of something to shout or say