492 Quotes About Novels

I think it is the art of the glimpse. If the novel is like an intricate Renaissance painting, the short story is an impressionist painting. It should be an explosion of truth. Its strength lies in what it leaves out just as much as what it puts in, if not more. It is concerned with the total exclusion of meaninglessness. Life, on the other hand, is meaningless most of the time. The novel imitates life, where the short story is bony, and cannot wander. It is essential art.

Now and then I am asked as to ‘what books a statesman should read,’ and my answer is, poetry and novels – including short stories under the head of novels.

Short stories are often treated as the poor cousins of novels.

Some novels even overdramatize events, which, in real life, happen in a far more unassuming and inconsequential way; they happen, then they're over, they run into one another, floating like clouds scattered by the wind between the odd deceptive pause that turns out to be impossible, because time—which no one understands—stops for nothing.

I find novels compose my mind. Do you read novels too? - Reverend Finch's wife

Don't try to resist the effect that a work of imaginative literature has on you.

Plot twist: everything goes exactly as planned.

A Decision That Can Change Your Life Forever, Can Happen In Just One Second.

It is a wonderful thing to be liked by a stranger, but without respect it is pointless. It is like pulling the pedals off a rose and throwing the stem at the person you like. It’s creepy, but had good intentions that suddenly experienced some strange form of verticillium wilt, during the climate change of their mood.