#novel

It was my angry, Dickensian novel, I suppose. It was cathartic - I expended a lot of frustration on that one. ↗

— Richard Helms

#cathartic #dickensian #expended #frustration #i

Traditionally, people have been adapting novels and short stories forever. Now, they're doing it simultaneously, with an eye towards writing the movie before the novel has even come out or been finished. It's a function of this hyper-accelerated society we live in, where everyone is trying to short circuit the process. ↗

— Howard Gordon

#been #before #circuit #come #doing

Don't show off every day, or you'll stop surprising people. There must always be some novelty left over. The person who displays a little more of it each day keeps up expectations, and no one ever discovers the limits of his talent. ↗

— Baltasar Gracian

#day #discovers #displays #each #ever

I started writing seriously when I was 18, wrote my first novel when I was 22, and I've never stopped writing since. ↗

— Sue Grafton

#i #never #novel #seriously #since

I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story. ↗

— John Irving

#almost #always #been #central #century

First, relax. ... And my second helpful hint is that you should not try to memorize anything you read in this book. ... My two words of advice are exemplified in what I call the Russian Novel Phenomenon. Every reader must have experienced that depressing moment about fifty pages into a Russian novel when we realize that we have lost track of all the characters, the variety of names by which they are known, their family relationships and relative ranks in the civil service. At this point we can give in to our anxiety, and start again to read more carefully, trying to memorize all the details on the offchance that some may prove to be important. If such a course is followed, the second reading is almost certain to be more incomprehensible than the first. The probable result: one Russian novel lost forever. But there is another alternative: to read faster, to push ahead, to make sense of what we can and to enjoy whatever we make sense of. And suddenly the book becomes readable, the story makes sense, and we find that we can remember all the important characters and events simply because we know what is important. Any re-reading we then have to do is bound to make sense, because at least we comprehend what is going on and what we are looking for. ↗

— Frank Smith

#relax #russian-novel-phenomenon #family

I do have some theatrical background. I've written plays and seen plays and read plays. But I also read novels. One thing I don't read is screenplays. ↗

— Charlie Kaufman

#background #i #i do #novels #one thing

I never discuss a novel while I'm writing it, for fear that talking about it will diminish my desire to write it. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#desire #diminish #discuss #fear #i

In my personal life, I'm a comic novel. But then, so are we all, because we're human beings. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#beings #comic #human #human beings #i

When I'm working on a novel, I work 70-hour weeks. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#novel #weeks #work #working