#novel

I save the best of myself for novels, and I believe it shows. ↗

— Anne Tyler

#best #i #i believe #myself #novels

A novel is balanced between a few true impressions and the multitude of false ones that make up most of what we call life. ↗

— Saul Bellow

#between #call #false #few #impressions

I do write long, long character notes - family background, history, details of appearance - much more than will ever appear in the novel. I think this is what lifts a book from that early calculated, artificial stage. ↗

— Anne Tyler

#appearance #artificial #background #book #calculated

If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea. ↗

— Elizabeth Bowen

#idea #illustrating #near #novel #simply

Afterward, Sara didn't really remember falling asleep, still wearing her robe although she meant to get dressed and had had Serafina lay out a pair of jeans and a blouse for her. In any case, she had slept. And there had been dreams -- of the unsettling kind she didn't want to recall. ↗

— Rosemary Rogers

#dreams

Novelists are not equipped to make a movie, in my opinion. They make their own movie when they write: they're casting, they're dressing the scene, they're working out where the energy of the scene is coming from and they're also relying tremendously on the creative imagination of the reader. ↗

— John le Carre

#casting #coming #creative #dressing #energy

We have learned in recent years to translate almost all of political life in terms of conspiracy. And the spy novel, as never before, really, has come into its own. ↗

— John le Carre

#before #come #conspiracy #into #learned

'Caught' is a novel of forgiveness, and the past and the present - who should be and who shouldn't be forgiven. None of my books are ever just about thrills, or it won't work. ↗

— Harlan Coben

#books #caught #ever #forgiven #forgiveness

In real life, coincidences happen all the time. In novels, they are leapt upon with fury. ↗

— Harlan Coben

#fury #happen #life #novels #real

You know, people call mystery novels or thrillers 'puzzles.' I never understood that, because when I buy a puzzle, I already know what it is. It's on the box. And even if I don't, if it's a 5,000-piece puzzle of the 'Mona Lisa', it's not like I put the last piece in and go, 'I had no idea it's the 'Mona Lisa'!' ↗

— Harlan Coben

#because #box #buy #call #even