Novel Quotes - Page 2

I am a dash man and not a miler, and it is probable that I will never write a novel. So far the novels of this war have had too much of the strength, maturity and craftsmanship critics are looking for, and too little of the glorious imperfections which teeter and fall off the best minds. The men who have been in this war deserve some sort of trembling melody rendered without embarrassment or regret. I’ll watch for that book.

J.D. Salinger

Redwing had read somewhere that one of his favourite writers, Ernest Hemingway, had been asked what was the best training for a novelist. He had said “an unhappy childhood.” Redwing had enjoyed a fine time growing up, but he wondered if this whole expedition was unfolding more like a novel, and would be blamed on one person, one character, the guy in charge: him. Maybe you got a happy childhood and then an unhappy adulthood, and that’s how novels worked.

Gregory Benford

Personality is a piece of paper that folds in to conceal different sides and display others, like an Origami

Alejandro Colliard

It's more like how some people can't help but bring out the not necessarily righteous parts of your personality. Like how you meet someone and instantly know they're a full-time professional victim, and no matter how hard you try, something takes over and you can't help needling them.

Richard Kadrey

Perhaps the whole of life is a continuousinterconnecting of miracle,but we don't always realise it.

Paul Morris Segal

Lyra marveled at the effect hope could have.

Philip Pullman

she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.

Philip Pullman

If a novelist were so uncouth and possessed of so little moral sense that he should write of illicit love, his book would be barred from the public libraries and he woukd be ostracized by society.

Clyde Brion Davis

Had Zach just apologised for kissing her? She didn’t know whether to cry or slap his face. ~Maddie

Monique DeVere

In my end lies my beginning" Who said that? Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1542-1587).

Danny Saunders

A novelist's job is almost to be a stupid as possible, except in the cunning moment when you need to structure something, when you need to be very intelligent indeed. The rest of the time, you need almost an empty mind, where you can let any image in, follow it along, and allow an emotional charge, almost the way actors and singers can work. The more instinct you have as a novelist, and the less intelligence, the better.

Colm Tóibín

Part of what I love about novels and dogs is that they are so beautifully oblivious to economic concerns. We serve them, and in return they thrive. It's not their responsibility to figure out where the rent is coming from.

Ann Patchett

When you care for someone, you don't ruin their life!

Gaelen Foley

His mind is like that. On the inside, where he never smiles.

Stephen King

I think politics is deadly to write about, frankly. If you have a political agenda and you set out to write a novel to prove that, say, capitalism should crumble, then it's going to be a really bad novel. Very few people have been able to deal with political fiction - Dickens, Dostoyevsky. But even Tolstoy got really tiresome when he was talking about the serfs. You have to let characters be characters, not [gruff voice] Mr Capitalism or [girlie voice] Miss Anti-Fur.

Donna Tartt

Ladies sheltering behind men, men sheltering behind servants - the whole system's wrong, and she must challenge it.

E.M. Forster

Taken together the Internet reads like the grandest character-driven novel humanity has ever known. Not much plot though.

Victor LaValle

Many of us can't go home again, whether home is Seville, Cabo Sur, Nastas, Havana, or Kansas City. Thus, we must recognize that home really lies in the eternal peace, dormant or conscious, that dwells in each human heart... Quote from "Ms. Quixote Goes Country", a truthful novel.

LEVega

Socrates is flying. No, he is soaring. The wings behind him beat in a calming rhythm while the cool air rushes past. His wings are all that matter, snapping at the rushing wind like the sails of some great sea vessel, the feathery appendages all he is and all he will ever want to be.His back muscles flex with the effort that takes him high above the ground. He feels the effort, of course, but sweeping into the sky does not require much of one. The sensation is pleasurable, even exhilarating. With flight there is freedom beyond description, an ecstasy bordering on sexual.He has only one destination, and that is to soar higher, to no longer be a prisoner of the earth. Here destinations seem irrelevant, the world below small. Flying exceeds every pleasure he knows. In the immense forever of blue sky, all that matters is flight and his ability to climb higher.Up and up and up...

Kenneth C. Goldman

Writing a novel is easy… writing checks is hard.

Michael J. Kannengieser

I'm not a lawyer, but I play one in my novel COPYRIGHT. I also play a serial rapist, a drug addict, a teenage boy and lesbian model.

Lori Lesko

The masks. that men have as faces, the outward shells they hold up for others to see while their minds shift in hidden directions" Discard 2

Lois Charles

The masks. that men have as faces, the outward shells they hold up for others to see while their minds shift in hidden directions." Discard 2

Lois Charles

The problem with living so long is that you see too many people pass before you.

Lisa See

And he always checks that he carries three things with him: faith, hope, and love.

Paulo Coelho

Since the moment when, at the sight of his beloved and dying brother, Levin for the first time looked at the questions of life and death in the light of the new convictions, as he called them, which between the ages of twenty and thirty-four had imperceptibly replaced the beliefs of his childhood and youth, he had been less horrified by death than by life without the least knowledge of whence it came, what it is for, why, and what it is, Organisms, their destruction, the indestructibility of matter, the law of the conservation of energy, development—the terms that had superseded these beliefs—were very useful for mental purposes; but they gave no guidance for life, and Levin suddenly felt like a person who has exchanged a thick fur coat for a muslin garment and who, being out in the frost for the first time, becomes clearly convinced, not by arguments, but with the whole of his being, that he is as good as naked and that he must inevitably perish miserably.

Leo Tolstoy

The masks. that men have as faces, the outward shells they hold up for others to see while their minds shift in hidden directions. Discard 2

Lois Charles

I thought it was a novel.”“It is.”“What’s it about??”“You’ll have to buy it to find out, but it’s got everything: love, death and an amusing dog.”“This one’s got a recipe for apple crumble,” I said.“Don’t you love that about the novel? The capaciousness?” he said.

Marcel Theroux

Underneath the groundyou can't hear a soundnot even the sweet falling rainyou might forget about tomorrowforget about the swallowsbut they won't forget youthey won't forget you

Karl P.T. Walsh

Among the people to whom he belonged, nothing was written or talked about at that time except the Serbian war. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time, it now did for the benefit of the Slavs: balls, concerts, dinners, speeches, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurants—all bore witness to our sympathy with the Slavs.With much that was spoken and written on the subject Konyshev did not agree in detail. He saw that the Slav question had become one of those fashionable diversions which, ever succeeding one another, serve to occupy Society; he saw that too many people took up the question from interested motives. He admitted that the papers published much that was unnecessary and exaggerated with the sole aim of drawing attention to themselves, each outcrying the other. He saw that amid this general elation in Society those who were unsuccessful or discontented leapt to the front and shouted louder than anyone else: Commanders-in-Chief without armies, Ministers without portfolios, journalists without papers, and party leaders without followers. He saw that there was much that was frivolous and ridiculous; but he also saw and admitted the unquestionable and ever-growing enthusiasm which was uniting all classes of society, and with which one could not help sympathizing. The massacre of our coreligionists and brother Slavs evoked sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against their oppressors. And the heroism of the Serbs and Montenegrins, fighting for a great cause, aroused in the whole nation a desire to help their brothers not only with words but by deeds.Also there was an accompanying fact that pleased Koznyshev. It was the manifestation of public opinion. The nation had definitely expressed its wishes. As Koznyshev put it, ' the soul of the nation had become articulate.' The more he went into this question, the clearer it seemed to him that it was a matter which would attain enormous proportions and become epoch-making.

Leo Tolstoy

It’s always nice to learn a thing or two from a novel, don’t you think?

Zia Haider Rahman

... novels contained something inexpressibly delicious.

Marcel Proust

I also need to prepare myself for the inevitability of utter boredom: Very often, single people don't do shit. They do nothing, all night long. They sit in a recliner and watch TV. I've probably watched more television than anyone you've ever met, and I don't even own one. Terrible shows, good shows, Golf tournaments in Cancun. C-SPAN. Hours of Oprah. Law and Order. Lonely people love Law and Order, for whatever reason. They prefer the straight narratives. p60

Chuck Klosterman

Alive, and one. We are one, and while we love, death will never touch us. 'The grave's a fine and private place/ but none, I think, do there embrace.

Diana Gabaldon

I don’t know why I told you all those things, but I did. Maybe it was because I’m a drunk, and sometimes drunks like to confess.

Steven Ramirez Dead Is All You Get

Strange looks everything for a stranger!

Nathan Haddish Mogos

Vronsky meanwhile, in spite of the complete fulfilment of what he had so long desired, was not completely happy. He soon felt that the realization of his longing gave him only one grain of the mountain of bliss he had anticipated. That realization showed him the eternal error men make by imagining that happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes. When first he united his life with hers and donned civilian clothes, he felt the delight of freedom in general, such as he had not before known, and also the freedom of love—he was contented then, but not for long. Soon he felt rising in his soul a desire for desires—boredom. Involuntarily he began to snatch at every passing caprice, mistaking it for a desire and a purpose.

Leo Tolstoy

Although they are often called cabarets, and occasionally there is even strip-dancing involved, you shouldn't associate them with merrymaking or extravaganza...

Lola Smirnova

Love is something that is beyond us. We can't anticipate love. When, where and with whom we fall in love is coincidental and wonderful for the same reason.

Santonu Kumar Dhar

Life is God's Novel. Let Him write it. -Isaac Bashevis Singer

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Life is full of beautiful moments. Live your life to the fullest. And do what youlove.

Santonu Kumar Dhar

The threat of war hung on the air like a thick fog and it blinded him until he could see nothing beyond the haze. Even the stars grew faint.

Brian A. McBride

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

William Boyd

It was late morning when he woke and found the telephone beside his bed in the hotel tolling frantically, and remembered that he had left word to be called at eleven. Sloane was snoring heavily, his clothes in a pile by his bed. They dressed and ate breakfast in silence, and then sauntered out to get some air. Amory's mind was working slowly, trying to assimilate what had happened and separate from the chaotic imagery that stacked his memory the bare shreds of truth. If the morning had been cold and gray he could have grasped the reins of the past in an instant, but it was one of those days that New York gets sometimes in May, when the air of Fifth Avenue is a soft, light wine. How much or how little Sloane remembered Amory did not care to know; he apparently had none of the nervous tension that was gripping Amory and forcing his mind back and forth like a shrieking saw.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The woman you thought you talked to was like one out of my novels, nothing more than a dream, and illusion I conjured to feel better. That’s all I ever will be, unable to be that woman in real life.

Nicole Kiefer

Write what you want to write and would like to read, not for any invisible audience. Your readers will find you.

David John Griffin

Every novel has at least three stories. Of course, there’s story in its pages. But then there’s the story of its writing. And there’s also the story of its reaching, or not reaching, the bigger world of its readers.

Ian R. MacLeod

If I had followed every urge I ever had, I would have had much more sex and killed a lot more people

Tommy Cotton

The novel is born not of the theoretical spirit but of the spirit of humor.

Milan Kundera

I went on steadily trying to 'find out how to'; but I wrote two or three novels without feeling that I had made much progress. It was not until I wrote "Ethan Frome" that I suddenly felt the artisan's full control of his implements. When "Ethan Frome" first appeared I was severely criticized by the reviewers for what was considered the clumsy structure of the tale. I had pondered long on this structure, had felt its peculiar difficulties, and possible awkwardness, but could think of no alternative which would serve as well in the given case: and though I am far from thinking "Ethan Frome" my best novel, and am bored and even exasperated when I am told that it is, I am still sure that its structure is not its weak point.

Edith Wharton

Ironically, in life, you sacrifice everything you love in the name of love"~ the motto of the romance novel Cupcakes and Cologne.

Doina Moulin

Long novels written today are perhaps a contradiction: the dimension of time has been shattered, we cannot love or think except in fragments of time each of which goes off along its own trajectory and immediately disappears.

Italo Calvino

He cannot recall just when that initial feeling of oneness faded, subordinated to the everyday activities of daily living. He is disappointed to realize he can no longer expect to find her up and awaiting his return. Discard 2

Lois Charles

I don’t want what we’re doing to just end up as notes for a novel.

Ben Lerner

Now call your old lady and tell her to come out here. Go ahead and don't try no funny stuff.

Lois Charles

Publishers, readers, booksellers, even critics, acclaim the novel that one can deliciously sink into, forget oneself in, the novel that returns us to the innocence of childhood or the dream of the cartoon, the novel of a thousand confections and no unwanted significance. What becomes harder to find, and lonelier to defend, is the idea of the novel as—in Ford Madox Ford’s words—a “medium of profoundly serious investigation into the human case.

James Wood

In the city, human beings celebrated and enjoyed material conditions and comforts, but were caught in the labyrinths and knots of spiritual shallowness and psychological confusion. In the city human beings wrestled with the demands of survival and profit but fled from life’s imperatives of honesty and moderation. In the city man was afraid to confront his own face.

Isa Kamari

Pak Suleh recalled the atmosphere on his island of Pulau Sebidang, which had been ruled by his ancestors for more than a hundred years. Now it had been passed to foreign hands—whichever nation from whatever foreign world which had been claiming the island was theirs—such that he and his ancestors who had lived on that island for generation after generation had been chased away to live in these birdhouses. They had now inherited these congested breathing diseases.Why was it that he could no longer enjoy the wind which blows from the sea, which is very much one of God’s incomparable benevolences? He could no longer savour the swaying coconut trees, ketapang trees, beringin trees and other trees which whistled and murmured when caressed by the winds as their dried leaves fell onto the sand, mixed with red and white flowers scattered all over the pristine white beach, resembling the moving clouds on a wide piece of white paper.I have lost everything, thought Pak Suleh deep in his heart.

Suratman Markasan

It is a strange thing, looking at the sea. When it is calm, or with only gentle ripples, it gives an impression of being soft and kind. But often, on such a calm, the wind suddenly blows, thrusting the water back into angry waves. At such times, in a certain sense, one feels sorry for the sea. Never of itself offensive to others, it is all too often attacked by wind and rain, the rain falling densely upon it, shaming the beauty of its calm face with a million bouncing bubbles. Were the wind to stop blowing, the ocean, surely, would never afflict the land with any calamity, nor would any human beings suffer.

Tan Kok Seng

But seriously Holden, what is the island called now?”“Sentosa,” Holden said romantically and with a flourish of his unoccupied left hand.“Sentosa. Sounds romantic all right. So this is the progress you’re talking about?

Robert Yeo

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Novel Quotes - Page 2

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