Quotes by Novelists I don't think any novelist should be concerned with literature…literature should be left to essayists. Jacqueline Susann novelists literature thinking You're a wizard, Harry. J. K. Rowling inspirational-harry-potter magic novelists I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book. Jamaica Kincaid novelists reading book One of the admirable features of British novelists is that they have no scruple about setting their stories in foreign settings with wholly foreign personnel. James Buchan scruples novelists stories I am a master of fiction. I am also the greatest crime novelist who ever lived. I am to the crime novel in specific what Tolstoy is to the Russian novel and what Beethoven is to music. James Ellroy crime-novels novelists fiction Being an unpublished novelist has about as much social acceptability as being a shopping bag lady. James Frey bags shopping novelists The best of our fiction is by novelists who allow that it is as good as they can give, and the worst by novelists who maintain that they could do much better if only the public would let them. James M. Barrie novelists giving fiction The complexion of a novelist is seldom rosy (Paul Bailey once announced to a heavy-hearted audience of novelists at PEN that we have always been an ugly tribe). We are engaged in indoor activity, haemorrhoidal, prone to chillblains, poor of circulation. Jane Gardam ugly tribes novelists Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot. Jane Rule novelists plot choices Novelists never have to footnote. Jane Smiley footnotes novelists Poets and novelists and playwrights make themselves, against terrible resistances, give over what the rest of us keep safely locked within our hearts. Janet Malcolm novelists heart giving Novelists of a conservative or more purely aesthetic bent hold up better on the surface, but their novels go in and out of fashion according to relevance or irrelevance. Jane Smiley irrelevance novelists fashion A novelist is on the cusp between someone who knows everything and someone who knows nothing. Jane Smiley cusp novelists knows An urban novelist never minds a little decay. Jane Smiley decay novelists mind I'm a natural novelist. I'm interested in the person and the group, and how they mesh. And one of the ways I don't want them to mesh is for the person to be subsumed into the group. Jane Smiley groups novelists want Every Observer writer wants to be a novelist. Jared Kushner observers novelists want There seems almost a general wish of descrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. Jane Austen novelists genius wish Life is a very bad novelist. It is chaotic and ludicrous. Javier Marías chaotic novelists life-is Most novelists I know went through a period of intense self-examination and self-loathing after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. I certainly did. Jay McInerney novelists self world Novelists are always resisting autobiographical readings of their work, because they know how false those can be. Jeffrey Eugenides novelists reading writing «7891011121314151617»