492 Quotes About Novels

In truth, I bear the fault alone, for a writer longs to see his words come to life, especially as a playwright to see the characters you create in your mind come to flesh and blood on the stage. What delight strokes the vanity of a writer to hear the swoons of the penny-stinkers clamorng at your feet and calling your name.

I think that at the bottom of all art lies the impulse to preserve.

Sometimes you can write about a character's day in under a minute and sometimes it takes a day just to write about a minute.

Creativity is a commodity and derives its value only in how energy is spent.

Someone ought to write a novel about me,” said Lebedeva loftily. “I shouldn’t care if they lied to make it more interesting, as long as they were good lies, full of kisses and daring escapes and the occasional act of barbarism. I can’t abide a poor liar.

What we can imagine we can make real

The words unuttered in the night would not said in the day".

The great novels are deterrents. A Merck's manual on how not to live.

Awake and asleep the novel is with you, dogging your footsteps. Strange formless bits of material float out from the ether about you and attach themselves to the main body of the story as though they had hung suspended in air for years, waiting.