Quotes About Novels

I have two ideas for novels at the moment, neither of them all that conventional, but I'm not ready to choose between them yet, let alone settle down to the process of writing.

All of my novels are seeded in real life events, and 'The Wreckage' is no different.

I can't read historical fiction because I find the real thing so much more interesting.

Eventually, I realised that I wanted to try to create something myself, and that's what writing novels is. Not because I wanted to put myself in front of the world, but because I wanted to create something that would go out into the world.

I had a very realistic expectation of the level of success that it was possible to attain writing romance novels.

I don't think the relationship between novels and realities are one to one. Of course novels play different roles. It's essentially just a long narrative form. What you use that long narrative form for can be very different.

I have a great respect for people that write. I don't know how they do it every day... or do novels that they have to use their minds instead of just their memories. It's tough duty.

I'm not a massive reader, to be honest. I try and fill my time with other things. But I remember getting halfway through a book once. It was 'The Client' by John Grisham, which was quite interesting.

For all my longer works (i.e. the novels) I write chapter outlines so I can have the pleasure of departing from them later on.

Jack [Kerouac] was, in a sense, a twentieth-century American mythographer. And that's why maybe those novels will stand up, because they will be one of the best statements of the myth of the twentieth century.

Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott's novels and all Byron's poems!–then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life.

Sometimes you can publish a first novel in a kind of lyrical flourish, but it is not really a lyrical form. The beautiful truths about the world are more hard won than that. Novels should be bleach boned. It's a question of cumulative observation and lived suffering. It takes time.

There are many reasons I love novels with multiple narratives. In novels where the events are filtered through the consciousness of a single 'reliable' narrator, I often wonder, is this the whole story? What could be missing here?

I spent most of the '60s, when I was starting to try to write novels, living and working in Greece and Turkey. These are countries where the ancient past is interfused with the daily present, and I remember being struck with wonder at the constant sense of continuity and connection, the reminders that lie in wait for you at every turn.

Writing is writing. It's an abiding, wonderful talent, craft, gift that stays with you your whole life. And you can go in different forms, and you can try them. Look at me: I'm writing novels because I found something I love because I tried it.

The older books were quite light-hearted. But I think most of my novels do end on a deep note of pessimism. Shadows seem to be closing in. The final conclusion isn't that life is wonderful and everything is bright and cheery and in the garden.

The Sookie Stackhouse novels were selling well before the TV show, but the TV show led to a lot more exposure and readers. And a lot went on to read my other work. It was a wonderful thing for my bank account.

Most novels put out by small or corporate presses don't really sell that well - usually a thousand copies or so. Working with a small press, you have to be willing to book reading tours, plan events, make contacts with other small press authors, and find new ways of getting word about your new work out there.

I'm a huge Elizabeth Berg fan. Her novels are always charming, thoughtful, and filled with lively, three-dimensional characters.

When you're doing characters from famous novels, you have a responsibility as an actor to make it what the writer intended. And then you add and expand from there to create a three-dimensional performance.

I was writing all my childhood. And I wrote two novels when I was 17, which were terrible. And I'm not sorry I threw them out. So, I wrote. I had to write. You know, the thing was, I had no education.

After 30 novels, release day is still a thrill. It's always a little bittersweet, too.

Most crime novels offer a curious kind of escape, to places that jag the nerves and worry the mind. Their rides of suspense give a good thrill, but it's rarely a comfortable one.

In the world of crime novels, the annual Audible Sounds of Crime awards are a pretty big deal, and I was thrilled to be shortlisted for my fifth novel in my bestselling Nic Costa series.