A good novel, one which entices the author as much as it beckons the reader.

My spirit has been around far longer than my soul–I’ve lived several lifetimes already. And one this novel has been written, I will have lived several more.

The dull people decided years and years ago, as everyone knows, that novel-writing was the lowest species of literary exertion, and that novel reading was a dangerous luxury and an utter waste of time.

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...

When I imagine changing places with her I get the feeling I do on finishing a novel with a brick-wall happy ending—I mean the kind of ending when you never think any more about the...

And she did what nobody thought of doing… she consulted Anne.

Many of the comedies I had made in Sweden were slightly based on semi-autobiographical experiences, so adapting novels was a very different experience.

Thinking back on the outing to the theatre, she added, ‘I want a man, not a preening peacock!

The main question to a novel is — did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit...

Oh! And they read English novels! David! Did you ever look into an English novel? Well, do not trouble yourself. It is nothing but a lot of nonsense about girls with fanciful names getting married.

What the best novels and novelists do is to offer a different way of seeing.

never replace the real thing”. Then I was given a Kindle as a present. That shut me up. Stock complaints about the inherent pleasure of ye olde format are bandied about whenever some new upstart...

The novel is the one bright book of life. Books are not life. They are only tremulations on the ether. But the novel as a tremulation can make the whole man alive tremble.

Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets...

It’s easy to want to be an author. You see it in your mind with sun streaming through windows and a Siamese cat purring on an antique rug and a little pellet stove and somehow...

After reading Edgar Allan Poe. Something the critics have not noticed: a new literary world pointing to the literature of the 20th Century. Scientific miracles, fables on the pattern A+ B, a clear-sighted, sickly literature....

Does rough weather choose men over women? Does the sun beat on men, leaving women nice and cool?’ Nyawira asked rather sharply. ‘Women bear the brunt of poverty. What choices does a woman have in...

The Element of Surprise is their in every day,It’s when you wake up.

Honesty is vulnerability. Sadly, not everyone can handle someone’s honesty. However, lying allows people to be comfortable.

I have come to understand something about novels,” Tessa said.”And what is that?””They are not true.

Henry James said there isn’t any difference between “the English novel” and “the American novel” since there are only two kinds of novels at all, the good and the bad.

People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely...

A short story is a sprint, a novel is a marathon. Sprinters have seconds to get from here to there and then they are finished. Marathoners have to carefully pace themselves so that they don’t...

Build your novel one word at a time. Remember that minutes = novels.

My only wish is to be buried with my books.

I’ve only been to jail a few times, but in several different countries, at that. No, I’ve only been to jail a few times. But I still claim the ability to write a “serious” novel.

I wonder what the retirement age is in the novel business.The day you die.

Every novel is an attempt to capture time, to weave something solid out of air. The author knows it is an impossible task – that is why he keeps on trying.

Great writers experience their dreams. They put them on paper, where others can read about them.

A short story I have written long ago would barge into my house in the middle of the night, shake me awake and shout, ‘Hey,this is no time for sleeping! You can’t forget me, there’s...

Never Let The Roosters Wake You!

The best thing to do is to loosen my grip on my pen and let it go wandering about until it finds an entrance. There must be one – everything depends on the circumstances, a...

Semua orang pernah patah hati. All you have to do is move on.

Sentimentality was used because other political avenues were closed, and authors hoped that through it they could bring about a political change that would fulfill the egalitarian promises of the Revolution. Real political venues were...

God is going to send you someone that will rescue you. Then one day you will rescue them in return and together your story will rescue others. He has always been a God of rescues...

Ivanov: And this whole romance of ours is commonplace and trite: he lost heart, and he lost his way. She came along, strong and brave in spirit, and gave him an helping hand. That’s all...

Like the roller coaster of life…novels aren’t fun without ups and downs and even an occasional loop.

[Claire travels in time. And while she and Jamie do fall in love, their story is not so much the stuff of sighs and moans (well, not just that anyway) as it is a grand...

They (the novelists) became the voice of the citizen against the ubiquitous raison d’état, which reappeared endlessly to justify everything from unjust laws and the use of child labour to incompetent generalship and inhuman conditions...

There’s a magic to letting a story and its people unfold with witchcraft and late nights and walks in the woods. You don’t lead a story. You follow it.

What we can imagine we can make real

I don’t like novels that end happily. They depress me so much.

As we travel in time and on Equator, we will find our souls and then move in time towards time.

You will never accept gratitude as a solution to your problems, until you have reached the last stage of grief–acceptance.

In this place called Hell novels are written by people who don’t read books.

Besides it’s not as though the prisoner can truly die, any more than a character in a novel can. You can always flip back to the first page, can’t you?

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.

A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.

Bedensel sevgi şiddetsiz düşünülemez.

A book is a place where my reality, escapism, hope, despair, love and death lie.