Quotes About Novel

Astronaut Kjell Lindgren, for giving me a guided tour of NASA, for sharing his patriotism and enthusiasm with me, and for taking the cover of my first novel up in outer space. I want to be him when I grow up.

It was boring like reading a Scandinavian novel.

Alle Zufälle unseres Lebens sind Materialien, aus denen wir machen können, was wir wollen. Wer viel Geist hat, macht viel aus seinem Leben. Jede Bekanntschaft, jeder Vorfall wäre für den durchaus Geistigen erstes Glied einer unendlichen Reihe – Anfang eines unendlichen Romans.

Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer's own life.

Narrative art, the novel, from Murasaki to Proust, has produced great works of poetry.

I read the novel 'Miracle at St. Anna' when it was first released, and I loved it.

I think one of the keys to better writing is releasing all of your ideas and to not be afraid. Dream big. This could be the greatest novel in the world you know.

The first 40-50 pages of 'Veekai' is what made it film-friendly. I realised the subject would be relevant even after 50 years.

One of the reasons I'm reluctant to start a novel is it's such an obsessive activity. You get in there, you don't know anything else while you're in there. And that's quite a sacrifice to make, especially for us old guys where time is kind of short. You don't want to disappear for a year; you want to be outdoors.

To this day, 'The Duke and I' remains particularly close to my heart; I felt it was the novel in which my writing took a huge leap forward.

Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time,' especially 'Time Regained,' made me think differently about what the novel is and can do. Then I forgot about it, then reread it and remembered again.

George V. Higgins's 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle' (1970) added an extra literary layer to the con novel; James Crumley's 'The Last Good Kiss' (1978) influenced countless writers and will be remembered forever for its opening line, quoted often in obituaries of the author.

Let me now praise the American writer James Dickey. In 1970, his novel 'Deliverance' was published. I found it to be 278 pages that approached perfection. Its tightness of construction and assuredness of style reminded me of 'The Great Gatsby.'

Writing scripts is fine because you get through a page quickly. But writing words just reminds me of school. To me a novel would be like writing a 300-page essay.

A writer can spend a decade working obsessively on a novel, but in the commerce of publishing, many of the most important decisions about any book will be made based on very short pitches - from literary agent to editor to sales rep to bookstore buyer to a potential reader standing in the bookstore, asking, 'What's it about?'

The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book - it makes a very poor doorstop.

This paperback is very interesting, but I find it will never replace a hardcover book - it makes a very poor doorstop.

As a former reporter, I wrote 'The Scarecrow' quickly - I didn't have to think about what the character would do the way I do with Harry Bosch.

If a Canadian novel hasn't been a box-office success, say, 'The Republic of Love,' then producers are reluctant to try again.

It's hard to write an Evan Hunter novel because I really am starting from scratch. I'm assuming a new voice each time. The McBain voice is set.

I don't think I have a very novelistic brain. I like to read, but I don't know if I could ever write a novel.

There's a lot of ignorance about how long it takes to write a novel. There's a lot of ignorance about how long a novel is in your head before you start to write it.

I'm asked all the time, 'Doesn't it feel great to finish the novel?' And the answer to that is, 'No.' It's sort of a loss to stop a 10-year project, which is an imaginary project in the sense that it's a work of my imagination.

When I first met my husband, he was sculpting Vilnius out of clay - a sort of Vilnius, anyhow: a map of an imaginary European city based on the Lithuanian capital - to illustrate his second novel.