Quotes About Novels

Most of all, I think it was the novels that saved me from submission. I was young, but the first tiny, meek beginnings of my rebellion had already clicked into place.

Empathy lies at the heart of Gatsby , like so many other great novels--the biggest sin is to be blind to others' problems and pains. Not seeing them means denying their existence.

Between Scott on the earlier side and Dickens and Thackeray on the other, there was an immense production of novels, illustrated by not a few names which should rank high in the second class, while some would promote more than one of them to the first.

The novels that have fascinated me most are the ones that have reached me less through the channels of the intellect or reason than bewitched me.

I had read Harold Bloom's 'Where Shall Wisdom Be Found?' Late in his life, having read everything, Bloom asked which books had given him wisdom. I had just read a bunch of contemporary novels that had no wisdom for me.

Novels are my favorite to write and read. I do like writing personal essays, too. I'm not really a short story writer, nor do I tend to gravitate to them as a reader.

As a reader, I've always been interested in dystopian novels like 'Nineteen Eighty-four'.

The funny thing is, I'm not really a big reader, not a big fan of books in the first place.

I am not a big reader to begin with.

I'm not really a big reader.

Personally, I'm a big reader, and I've never wanted any of my favorite novels to be made into movies.

Novels are a kind of experiment in selfhood, for the reader as well as for the author.

I think of novels as houses. You live in them over the course of a long period, both as a reader and as a writer.

Even in horror novels where you know most characters aren't going to make it to the end, it's crucial to have fully fleshed-out characters. If you don't do that, the reader doesn't care what happens to them.

I think a writer's first job is to entertain, even in novels: to tell a compelling story that pulls the reader along toward an end. At the same time, the best stories are character-driven.

I was a big reader of Zane Grey as a young boy, and so horses and the West figured large in my imagination.

For a genre that's about looking to the future, science fiction has sure been looking backwards lately. Nostalgia is what sells best, with readers spending their money on movie tie-in novels and sequels to long-running series.

I'm very critical of crime novels that use gratuitous violence to shock readers when it isn't necessary. If that's all you have to offer as a writer, perhaps you're in the wrong job.

Soon after publishing a book for kids, my mailbox began to fill with letters from children all across America. Not because my novels for young readers are bestsellers - they're not by a long shot - but because today's kids love to write to authors.

Romance writers and readers have one thing in common: We love men.

Romance novels have the power to bring love into the lives of readers. Through the characters, we get to fall in love every time we pick up a romance novel. What could be better than that?

Overpopulated fiction can be so confusing that readers put the story down. Under-populated novels can seem claustrophobic or boring. You want the right number of characters for your particular work.

If you read the first page of one of my novels, I can guarantee that you will read the last one. This isn't just social commentary. This is also about writing good page-turners. I want people to keep reading.

I'm not not a fan of graphic novels, but it's not like one of my pastimes, reading graphic novels.