492 Quotes About Novels

Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start.

There is no correct way to write a novel, or rather, there is only one, and that one way is to make it interesting. That is very easily said, but how do you make your writing interesting?The answer to the question is, that you write interestingly only about the things that genuinely interest you. This is an infallible rule.

Sometimes I wonder if novel writers aren’t completely f**ked in the head. ~ Drew Stirling

The show must go on, and so must The Book.

In this book time thus flows in a tempo opposite that of real life: the tempo slows down as the years go by.

A journey begins with a good night's rest... or does it?

A novel is no place to look for happiness.

It stood the record of many sensations of pain, once severe, but now softened; and of some instances of relenting feeling, some breathings of friendship and reconciliation, which could never be looked for again, and which could never cease to be dear. She left it all behind her, all but the recollection that such things had been.

Novelists are basically inviting their readers to play a game of pretend. That's what fiction is: a game of pretend.