I think the reason novels are regarded to have so much more ‘information’ than films is that they outsource the scenic design and cinematography to the reader… This, for me, is a powerful argument for...

The show must go on, and so must The Book.

Ideas are cheap. Writing them into a freakin’ 90k word novel is the hard part.

Express yourself, Express your life, Express the Moment, Live the life.

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

I read daily, not so much for the benefit of my writing, but because I am addicted to it. There is nothing in the world for me that compares to being lost in a really...

Only in novels can we take another human being into our head and create something jointly.

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.

Do not start me on The Da Vinci Code … a novel so bad that it gives bad novels a bad name.”(Discussion at Woodruff Auditorium in Lawrence, KS; October 7, 2005.)

You don’t read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses...

About some books we feel that our reluctance to return to them is the true measure of our admiration. It is hard to suppose that many people go back, from a spontaneous desire, to reread...

Meredith immersed herself in the novels. For some reason, fiction hit on the meaning of life so much more concisely than real life itself did.

It is untrue that fiction is nonutilitarian. The uses of fiction are synonymous with the uses of literature. They include refreshment, clarification of life, self-awareness, expansion of our range of experiences, and enlargement of our...

Novels arise out of the shortcoings of history.

If you only write when inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you’ll never be a novelist.

As far as I am concerned, I write novels, and other people can do the labelling.

Two questions form the foundation of all novels: “What if?” and “What next?” (A third question, “What now?”, is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it’s more a cry than...

There are three secrets to writing a novel. Unfortunately nobody knows what they are.

I am very careful about who I choose to build memories with. Some of them might last a lifetime.

Her heart and soul had already spoken. They wouldn’t let Lucas go.

It is only a novel… or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its...

What do you think editing is?

My brother Keith begged to go with us as usual. He’ll turn thirteen in a few days – August 14 – and the thought of waiting two more years until he’s 15 must seem impossible...

He thought of trying to explain something he had recently noticed about himself: that if anyone insulted him, or one of his friends, he didn’t really mind–or not much, anyway. Whereas if anyone insulted a...

The battles may last for a long time, perhaps even years. There are powerful forces on both sides, and the war is important to both armies. It’s not a battle of good against evil. It’s...

Are we not all books waiting for someone to pick us up and read the pages that people missed?

I sometimes think it ironic for an ex-seaman, longshoreman, truck driver, policeman, bus driver, etc… to find success writing children’s novels.

What is it about us lady authors and our fascination for the exclamation mark?

At the Beginning there was Incomplete information,then belief and then an abstract idea but if you reach Pure reasoning then you start to understand the dualities of life itself.The sunset,the sunrise;A star from approximately 93...

When extremists come together extreme things happen.

Attitude Is More Important Than Talent!

The only time I’ve ever learned anything from a review was when John Lanchester wrote a piece in the Guardian about my second novel, The Heather Blazing. He said that, together with the previous novel,...

The English novels are the only relaxation of the intellectually unemployed. But one should not be too severe on them. They show a want of knowledge that must be the result of years of study.

There is quite enough sorrow and shame and suffering and baseness in real life and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction. As Police Commissioner it was my duty to deal with...

Sometimes losses in life are not losses at all. They are simply the evidence God provides, in order to build a story so profound, that it will cause social change.

I am certain that a novelist is someone who attributes a different reality-value to the characters and events of his story than to those of ‘real’ life. A novelist is someone who confuses his own...

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is...

I have often wondered, Sir, [. . .] to observe so few Instances of Charity among Mankind; for tho’ the Goodness of a Man’s Heart did not incline him to relieve the Distresses of his...

A novel must show how the world truly is, how characters genuinely think, how events actually occur. A novel should somehow reveal the true source of our actions.

I feel like it’s hard to get into historical novels where you know what the story is far too well.

All novels are sequels; influence is bliss.

It is practically an axiom in psychiatry that precocious intellect combined with physical weakness can give rise to many unpleasant character traits – avarice, delusions of grandeur , and obsessive masturbation, to name just a...

Science Fiction properly conceived, like all serious fiction, however funny, is a way of trying to describe what is going on, what people actually do and feel, how people relate to everything else in this...

The Cool Stuff Theory of Literature is as follows: All literature consists of whatever the writer thinks is cool. The reader will like the book to the degree that he agrees with the writer about...

I write romance and passion to savour love twice, in the moment and in retrospect.

Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can’t be done abruptly.”[Colm Tóibín, Novelist – Portrait of the Artist, The Guardian, 19 February 2013]

I guess you can call me “old fashioned”. I prefer the book with the pages that you can actually turn. Sure, I may have to lick the tip of my fingers so that the pages...

‎”It almost felt like the dolphin of my heart’s desire playing in the ocean of my life.” – on writing

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything….The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There...

What does the novel do? It tells beautiful, shapely lies which enclose hard, exact truths.