#novel

Where are you? Have you arrived yet?” she asked eagerly. “I have. I’m here and it’s great. I love it.” “I knew you would!” cried Hannah. “So are you coming down? Help me pull a pint or two?” “Yeah, sure. Give me half an hour or so, and I’ll be there.” “Brilliant. See you soon.” “Bye,” replied Layla, hanging up. No time for eating then, she’d better unpack the car, sort out the bedraggled mess that she was, and get down to the pub. Start learning the ropes. Hauling one of the bags upstairs, she went into her bedroom and plonked it on the bed. Before doing anything else, however, she couldn’t resist peering out of the window again, having to imagine Gull Rock this time as the deepening night had hidden it completely. A year, she thought. That’s all I’ve got, a year. Enough time to get over anyone, surely? Taking in a deep breath then letting it slowly out, she bloody hoped so. ↗

— Shani Struthers

#imagination

Honestly...this is why I write. I write to get the happy ending I sometimes feel is eluding me. I write for my sanity. ↗

— Debora Dennis

#romance-novels #writing #writing-quote #writing-romance #inspirational

Find the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse to let them go. ↗

— Lauren Oliver

#inspirational #lauren-oliver #love #novels #romance

I had always said to myself that forty was the cut off point of my apprenticeship which may for some people sound like a very long one, but the novel as art is a middle-aged art. ↗

— Jane Rule

#apprenticeship #art #cut #forty #had

Half asleep, he wondered whether that might not have been his happiest day ever, the last, perfect day swelling with the immensity of his secret intent, secret creation—the day before everything changed—the day before he realized, for the first time, yet with absolute finality, just how small his private immensity really was when measured against that other vast, dark, impersonal immensity, call it God, or history, or simply life. ↗

— Olga Grushin

#novel #surrealism #change

...a novel, like a myth or any great work of art, can become an initiation that helps us to make a painful rite of passage from one phase of life, one state of mind, to another. A novel, like a myth, teaches us to see the world differently; it shows us how to look into our own hearts and to see our world from a perspective that goes beyond our own self-interest. ↗

— Karen Armstrong

#myth #novels #reading-books #art

I don't think that you can be prescriptive about anything, I mean, life is too complicated. Maybe there are novels where the author has not in the least thought about it in terms of film, which can be turned into good films. ↗

— Paul Auster

#anything #author #complicated #film #films

One good reason for writing novels based on your life is that you have something to read in old age when you've forgotten what happened. ↗

— Nina Bawden

#based #forgotten #good #good reason #happened

I can't change the past, and I don't think I would. I don't expect to be understood. I like what I've written, the stories and two novels. If I had to give up what I've written in order to be clear of this disease, I wouldn't do it. ↗

— Harold Brodkey

#clear #disease #expect #give #had

I think of my books now as suspense novels, usually with a love story incorporated. They're absolutely a lot harder to write than romances. They take more plotting and real character development. ↗

— Sandra Brown

#books #character #character development #development #harder