492 Quotes About Novels

She's a novelist, which is tantamount to being a one woman card catalogue for useless knowledge.

Writing a book is just talking to yourself and snacks.

My first novel was not the first one I started. It was the first one I finished.

Should you chance to read it a second or third time, Wuthering Heights comes at you afresh, in part because the novel seems to vanish into its own delirious origins once you've finished it, leaving no footprints, and in part because it is a literary force of nature such as you've never encountered before.

Precision is easier to master than artful vagueness, especially now when, thanks to Google, novels are fact-heavy. We no longer refer to “flowers” but to particular varieties of roses. The whole valuable distinction between foreground (precise) and background (blurred) has been lost, and now everything is crowding toward the viewer, clamoring for attention.

You travel so much and are exposed to a lot. It has helped me become a keen observer of life”A Red, Red Rose — A Search For An Identity

Marry her if she is reading a novel and hasn't announced it to the whole world.

The sense that you are in touch with something really different - completely human and extremely understandable emotionally - but really different. That's one of the great things novels do.

To write a novel is always to go naked, whatever you're writing about. You always reveal yourself.