96 Quotes About Novelist

I ran across an excerpt today (in English translation) of some dialogue/narration from the modern popular writer, Paulo Coelho in his book: Aleph.(Note: bracketed text is mine.).. 'I spoke to three scholars, ' [the character says 'at last.']. .two of them said that, after death, the [sic (misprint, fault of the publisher)] just go to Paradise. The third one, though, told me to consult some verses from the Koran. [end quote]'. .I can see that he's excited. [narrator]'. .Now I have many positive things to say about Coelho: He is respectable, inspiring as a man, a truth-seeker, and an appealing writer; but one should hesitate to call him a 'literary' writer based on this quote. A 'literary' author knows that a character's excitement should be 'shown' in his or her dialogue and not in the narrator's commentary on it. Advice for Coelho: Remove the 'I can see that he's excited' sentence and show his excitement in the phrasing of his quote.( Now, in defense of Coelho, I am firmly of the opinion, having myself written plenty of prose that is flawed, that a novelist should be forgiven for slipping here and there.) Lastly, it appears that a belief in reincarnation is of great interest to Mr. Coelho. . Just think! He is a man who has achieved, (as Leonard Cohen would call it), 'a remote human possibility.' He has won lots of fame and tons of money. And yet, how his preoccupation with reincarnation–none other than an interest in being born again as somebody else–suggests that he is not happy!. Roman Payne

If you write then you are reborn because by writing about the moment, you can relive it for a second time. Kamand Kojouri

Who is better off? The one who writes to revel in the voluptuousness of the life that surrounds them? Or the one who writes to escape the tediousness of that which awaits them outside? Whose flame will last longer? Roman Payne

On my website there's a quote from the writer Anthony Burgess: "The greatest gift is the passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind." I've always found that inspiring because the written word, as an art form, is unlike any other: movies, TV, music, they're shared experiences, but books aren't like that. The relationship between a writer and a reader is utterly unique to those two individuals. The world that forms in your head as you read a book will be slightly different to that experienced by every other reader. Anywhere. Ever. Reading is very personal, a communication from one mind to another, something which can't be exactly copied, or replicated, or directly shared. If I read the work of, say, one of the great Victorian novelists, it's like a gift from the past, a momentary connection to another's thoughts. Their ideas are down on paper, to be picked up by me, over a century later. Writers can speak individually to readers across a year, or ten years, or a thousand. That's why I love books. Simon Cheshire

This was what I came to found. The conquest of loneliness was the missing link that was one day going to make a decent novelist out of me. If you are out here and cannot close off the loves and hates of all that back there in the real world the memories will overtake you and swamp you and wilt your tenacity. Tenacity stamina.. close off to everything and everyone but your writing. That s the bloody price. I don t know maybe it's some kind of ultimate selfishness. Maybe it's part of the killer instinct. Unless you can stash away and bury thoughts of your greatest love you cannot sustain the kind of concentration that breaks most men trying to write a book over a three or four year period. Leon Uris

Reading poetry is like undressing before a bath. You don't undress out of fear that your clothes will become wet. You undress because you want the water to touch you. You want to completely immerse yourself in the feeling of the water and to emerge anew. Kamand Kojouri

I write because the security of your love allows me to develop my craft without concerning myself with trivialities – as if your love could be any more complete. But I write, in the first place, because of you, my muse. I write for your green eyes to glance at my humble words and for the pleasure of hearing you utter them. Kamand Kojouri

Poetry isn’t an island, it is the bridge. Poetry isn’t a ship, it is the lifeboat. Poetry isn’t swimming. Poetry is water. Kamand Kojouri

It is a dangerous thing to substitute reading or writing for living. Live first, then write. Kamand Kojouri

There is no revelation in my words. I am merely stating what others have forgotten to write down. Kamand Kojouri

These poems are cupsthat I pour my life into. Here, Drink! Kamand Kojouri

She was in awe of all his work. 'How do you do it?" she asked. He smiled and said, 'By loving you. Kamand Kojouri

I am going to build a fortress of books. Will you come inside and live with me? Kamand Kojouri

Sit here, so I may writeyou into a poem and make you eternal. Kamand Kojouri

For what was it about books that once finished left the reader in a bit of a haze and made them reread the last few sentences in order to continue the ringing in their hearts a while longer, so as not to let the silence illumine the fact that reading, they had gained something – distance, a lesson, a companion, a new world – but now, after the last full stop, they had lost something palpable and felt a little emptier than before. Kamand Kojouri

While victors may get to write history, novelists get to write/right reality. M.T. Bass

I don’t want to be remembered for my work. I want to be remembered for my love. Kamand Kojouri

All I need to dois place my pen against paperand your lovewrites for me. Kamand Kojouri

A poetess is not as selfishas you assume. After months of agonising over her marriage of words–the bride–and spaces–the groom, she knows that as soonas she has penned the poem, it’s yours to consume. So, without giving it a think, she blows on the inkand the letters fly awaylike dandelions on a windy day, landing on hands and lips, on hearts and hips. But more often than not, you can easily spotthem trodden and forgotten, becoming sodden and rotten. Yet, she will continue to makewhat’s others to takebecause selfishness is not the mark of a poetess. Kamand Kojouri

I've written you sixty-seven love poems. Here’s another one for you. But really, for me. These poems are the candles that I light with the fire you have ignited in me. I place this candle here and another thereso even if the stars have argued with the moonand are sulking away in a corner, you can still find your way to me. Sixty-eight poems now. What does the future hold for us? Joy? Disappointment? Gentle caresses? And subtle neglect? I hope the good is more than the bad. Much more. For what is the point of loveif by lighting these candlesour own flame loses its brightness? I know the good is more than the bad. Much more. I cannot wait to write you sixty-nine. Kamand Kojouri

Moonrise is a fabulous novel and my damn wife wrote it and that’s me up there near Highlands shouting it out to the hills. Pat Conroy

In the very end, all we have left to atone for our faults are words. Kamand Kojouri

I'm a novelist by trade and my job is to write a story rather than reconstruct actual events. Sara Sheridan

How astonishingly intimate the business of fiction is, more intimate than anything that issues from the psychiatrist’s couch or even the lovers’ bed. You see the soul, pinned and wriggling on the wall. Martin Amis

I'll call any length of fiction a story, whether it be a novel or a shorter piece, and I'll call anything a story in which specific characters and events influence each other to form a meaningful narrative. I find that most people know what a story is until they sit down to write one. Then they find themselves writing a sketch with an essay woven through it, or an essay with a sketch woven through it, or an editorial with a character in it, or a case history with a moral, or some other mongrel thing. When they realize that they aren't writing stories, they decide that the remedy for this is to learn something that they refer to as "the technique of the short story" or "the technique of the novel." Technique in the minds of many is something rigid, something like a formula that you impose on the material; but in the best stories it is something organic, something that grows out of the material, and this being the case, it is different for every story of any account that has ever been written. . Flannery OConnor

Fiction is overrated, Fly. We’ve discussed this. In the time it takes those novelist fuckers to contemplate a few poetic passages, a thousand kids die from malnutrition. Immediacy, man, that’s what counts. Rawi Hage

The Adventure called and I followed with my thumb like a character being written by an intractable author. Which, of course, I was. Sol Luckman

People make interesting assumptions about the profession. The writer is a mysterious figure, wandering lonely as a cloud, fired by inspiration, or perhaps a cocktail or two. Sara Sheridan

It is not so much as to say that something has occured; but to describe the very essence of the occurance. One must take hold of his readers and pull them into his world..the world that he has penned, with the utmost care and attentiveness. And then, when the readers are fully submerged in this magnificently crafted place of wonder; they will see, and touch, and smell, and feel all the elements of the author's imagination. Jason W. Blair

I was asked the other day in which era I would choose to live. As a historical novelist, it comes up sometimes. As a woman I'd have to say I'd like to live in the future - I want to see where these centuries of change are leading us. Sara Sheridan

As a novelist it is my job to tell stories that inspire and entertain but I am increasingly mindful that many of these historical tales (which of themselves are fascinating) relate directly to our issues in society today. Sara Sheridan

Bringing a novel to light - revealing the form and cadence, shadows and demeanor of a protagonist constructed from thin air - linking scenes and synchronicity across translucent time - holding up a glass brimming with chilled, never-tasted liquid, then sipping from it with intoxicated focus - allowing lovers to make a perilous mess of things, fall apart and nakedly come back together again - looking through conjured windows deep into someone else’s snow-bound solitude, feeling utterly alone yet being all-connected: this is not writing. It’s world-creating. It’s raw, exposed dreaming. It’s humbling. At first too personal and intimate to share, it evolves like a child into a life of its own until I have no say in what comes next. It’s what I wake at 4am to say Yes to, the spinning possibility of a new story relentlessly commanding me to write it down so it can whirl in your experience. Laurie Perez

I am, as it were, the created creating–a paradox, for all its rhetorical trappings, at the beating heart of our shared human journey, and one I invite you to struggle with just as I have while, day in and day out, word by word and line by line, constructing a fictitious autobiography for myself in these pages. Sol Luckman

I think the writer is initially set going by literature more than by life. When there are many writers all employing the same idiom, all looking out on more or less the same social scene, the individual writer will have to be more than ever careful that he isn't just doing badly what has already been done to completion. The presence alone of Faulkner in our midst makes a great difference in what the writer can and cannot permit himself to do. Nobody wants his mule and wagon stalled on the same track the Dixie Limited is roaring down. . Flannery OConnor

I'm not asking you to come reverently or unquestioningly; I'm not asking you to be politically correct or cast aside your sense of humor (please God you have one). This isn't a popularity contest, it's not the moral Olympics, and it's not church. But it's Writing, damn it, not washing the car or putting on eyeliner. If you can take it seriously, we can do business. If you can't or won't, it's time for you to close the book and do something else. Wash the car, maybe. Stephen King

Not writing is never an option. This is not words of advice. It's just literally never an option! Lillian R. Melendez

Writers possess magic. It's in their w Richelle E. Goodrich

I bleed words. I dream in narrative. I live in infinite worlds. I befriend figmental characters. I wish on stars in other galaxies. I harvest stories from a brooding muse. I bloom under moonlight in hushed seclusion. I am a writer. Richelle E. Goodrich

I love you so much. Our love is eternal. Santonu Kumar Dhar

Why are you behaving like this? You know how much I love you … and Ibelieve you love me as much, so why are you avoiding me? Santonu Kumar Dhar

The moment I close my eyes, I see you and sleep vanishes. I’m awake the entire night, revisiting ourmemories together. The night seems to stretch on forever. Santonu Kumar Dhar

I know you would be watching over me all through this journey called life... whenever I look next to me, I feel like you arehere... and a part of you is within me in the form of this child... Love is like the wind... you may not see it... especially in the absence of the other... but you always feel it around... Santonu Kumar Dhar

I spend a lot of time imagining things - in fact, you could say that imagining things is my job. Sara Sheridan

I guess it’s true: it’s difficult for men to understand women. Santonu Kumar Dhar

So much of a novelist’s writing … takes place in the unconscious: in those depths the last word is written before the word appears on paper. We remember the details of our story, we do not invent them. Graham Greene

I was forced to wander, having no one, forced by my nature to keep wandering because wandering was the only thing that I believed in, and the only thing that believed in me. Roman Payne

A warm sunny evening, the plash and gurgle of the waves in the rock pools, the rush of the cold gin. I thought for the first time of my novel, abandoned, all these years, and I came up, unprompted, with the perfect title. Octet. Octet by Logan Mountstuart. Perhaps I will surprise them all, yet. William Boyd

The lady who works in the grocery store at the corner of my block is called Denise, and she's one of America's great unpublished novelists. Over the years she's written forty-two romantic novels, none of which have ever reached the bookstores. I, however, have been fortunate enough to hear the plots of the last twenty-seven of these recounted in installments by the authoress herself every time I drop by the store for a jar of coffee or can of beans, and my respect for Denise's literary prowess knows no bounds. So, naturally enough, when I found myself faced with the daunting task of actually starting the book you now hold in your hands, it was Denise I turned to for advice. . Dave Gibbons

You do not need to be temperamental or upset to be a novelist. Don’t embrace the tortured artist rhetoric that any life difficulties might serve to benefit and enhance your writing. That’s damaging. Counterintuitive. Writing can be so incredibly lonely, and when you’re alone with your thoughts for long enough to produce a hundred thousand words of your own headspace, it can be scary. Suffering is not good for your art. Mental health care is. So talk to someone other than your future readers about the problems you are facing. Someone you know and trust. There is no shame in asking for help. . Bryant A. Loney

Film and novel characters are often stereotyped, but racial stereotyping in many novels or films creates & encourages labelling, discrimination & racism. ~Angelica Hopes Angelica Hopes

Every exceptional writer holds a Master of Arts in Daydreaming. Richelle E. Goodrich

You sound so miserable.”“ All novelists are. Changdictator

A novelist's characters must be with him as he lies down to sleep, and as he wakes from his dreams. He must learn to hate them and to love them. Anthony Trollope

On Twitter, people who had read my book followed me and I could see what else they were reading, why they'd liked what I'd written and by the by, more about them than I'd ever elicit from two minutes in a tent at a book festival, stuck behind a signing desk. Sara Sheridan

The novelist is required to create the illusion of a whole world with believable people in it, and the chief difference between the novelist who is an orthodox Christian and the novelist who is merely a naturalist is that the Christian novelist lives in a larger universe. He believes that the natural world contains the supernatural. And this doesn't mean that his obligation to portray the natural is less; it means it is greater. Flannery OConnor

These poems are cupsthat I pour my love into. Here, Drink! Kamand Kojouri

For a novelist, the gaps in a story are as intriguing as material that still exists. Sara Sheridan

The real novelist, the perfectly simple human being, could go on, indefinitely imaging. Virginia Woolf

You do not learn how to write novels in a writing program. You learn how by leading an interesting life. Open yourself up to all experience. Let life pour through you the way light pours through leaves. Pat Conroy

A friend worth knowing tolerates your flaws while a friend worth keeping loves you in spite of them. K.E. Garvey

Sometimes I don't even know why I'm writing what I'm writing... I'm just following these people around and taking notes. P. Anastasia

You write once and you can call yourself a writer, but it takes three novels before you can call yourself a novelist. The first two could have just been lucky. One day, I will finish my third, and one day, I will be a novelist. Michael Kroft

It is possible to be a great novelist - that is, to render a veracious account of your times - and a bad writer - that is, an incompetent practitioner of applied linguistics. Angela Carter

I remember calling the council's cemetery department to ask about body decomposition in different soil types. Once they had verified that I was a novelist and not a sicko, they were extremely helpful. Sara Sheridan

I realised early on that being an author is a hugely misunderstood job. Sara Sheridan

Edinburgh is a comfortable puddle for a novelist. Sara Sheridan

I'm a professional writer and I consider it part of my job to publicise my work and these days part of that job is done online. Sara Sheridan

On every page, confidence fights with self-doubt. Every sentence is an act of faith. Why would anybody want to do it? David Morrell

With the right tools, you can write anything ... Jeff Lyons

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 full of beautiful moments. Live your life to the fullest. And do what youlove. Santonu Kumar Dhar

A deed done to others, but for yourself is not a worthy one at all. Instead, place another before you; in this way, you can be sure your moral compass always points North. Jason W. Blair

As a historical novelist, there are few jobs more retrospective. Sara Sheridan

There are days when writing is within my power and a story unfolds along a course I've already chosen.  And then there are days when the words breathe on their own and take me by the hand, leading me along unfathomed paths.  Either way, the end result is this author's fairytale. Richelle E. Goodrich

The pleasures of being a novelist are many.  But the greatest by far is the manner in which I live through my characters; experiencing every detail of their story as it unfolds gradually and personally within my own creative psyche.  I'm like a cat with untold lives, because each new book is my rebirth. Richelle E. Goodrich

There is one myth about writers that I have always felt was particularly pernicious and untruthful–the myth of the "lonely writer, " the myth that writing is a lonely occupation, involving much suffering because, supposedly, the writer exists in a state of sensitivity which cuts him off, or raises him above, or casts him below the community around him. This is a common cliché, a hangover probably from the romantic period and the idea of the artist as a Sufferer and a Rebel.Probably any of the arts that are not performed in a chorus-line are going to come in for a certain amount of romanticizing, but it seems to me particularly bad to do this to writers and especially fiction writers, because fiction writers engage in the homeliest, and most concrete, and most unromanticizable of all arts. I suppose there have been enough genuinely lonely suffering novelists to make this seem a reasonable myth, but there is every reason to suppose that such cases are the result of less admirable qualities in these writers, qualities which have nothing to do with the vocation of writing itself. Flannery OConnor

As you write your novel, you gradually start thinking like some of your characters in it. And at times the writer may lose himself completely in some character. Avijeet Das

An authors publication date never matters, a book not read yet will always be New"... Catherine TownsendLyon

If your not annoying somebody, you're not alive. Margaret Atwood

...Cody is furiously explaining to his little son Tim 'Never let the right hand know what your left hand is doing'... Page 100. Jack Kerouac

As a historical novelist, there is very little I like more than spending time sorting through boxes of old letters, diaries, maps, trinkets, and baubles. Sara Sheridan

Mathias shrugged. After all, a criminal lawyer is not concerned with facts. He is concerned with probabilities. It is the novelist who is concerned with facts, whose job it is to say what a particular man did do on a particular occasion: the lawyer does not, cannot be expected to go further than show what the ordinary man would be most likely to do under presumed circumstances. Richard Hughes

I gain nothing but pleasure from writing fiction; short stories are foreplay, novellas are heavy petting — but novels are the full monte. Frankly, if I didn't enjoy writing novels I wouldn't do it — the world hardly needs any more and I can think of numerous more useful things someone with my skills could be engaged in. As it is, the immersion in parallel but believable worlds satisfies all my demands for vicarious experience, voyeurism and philosophic calithenics. I even enjoy the mechanics of writing, the dull timpani of the typewriter keys, the making of notes — many notes — and most seducttive of all: the buying of stationery. That the transmogrification of my beautiful thoughts into a grossly imperfect prose is always the end result doesn't faze me: all novels are only a version- there is no Platonic ideal. But I'd go further still: fiction is my way of thinking about and relating to the world; if I don't write I'm not engaged in any praxis, and lose all purchase. Will Self