#novelist

I was directed because I knew I wanted to be a novelist, but I didn't have a very good job or a way of getting published. I found those years to be among the most difficult of my life. ↗

— Jeffrey Eugenides

#because #difficult #directed #found #getting

Novelists are always resisting autobiographical readings of their work, because they know how false those can be. ↗

— Jeffrey Eugenides

#autobiographical #because #false #how #know

Some Pulitzer winners - novelists - have confided to me that getting the prize screwed them up. It messed with their heads. That hasn't been my experience. ↗

— Jeffrey Eugenides

#confided #experience #getting #hasn #heads

I never met anybody in my life who says, I want to be a critic. People want to be a fireman, poet, novelist. ↗

— Leslie Fiedler

#critic #fireman #i #life #met

One more recent novelist to come along is Cormac McCarthy. Him, I like. ↗

— Leslie Fiedler

#come #him #i #like #mccarthy

I was going to be a great woman novelist. Then the war came along and I think it's hard for young people today, don't you, to realize that when World War II happened we were dying to go and help our country. ↗

— Julia Child

#came #country #dying #go #going

So, how to stay inside the world of entertainment without actually getting another job? I felt the only logical answer was to become a novelist. So I wrote the first book - driven by some very real feelings of desperation - and it worked. ↗

— Lee Child

#another #answer #become #book #desperation

Novelists do not write as birds sing, by the push of nature. It is part of the job that there should be much routine and some daily stuff on the level of carpentry. ↗

— William Golding

#carpentry #daily #job #level #much

Read a thousand books, and your words will flow like a river. ↗

— Lisa See

#novelists #reading #storytellers #storytelling #writers

Yes, but also one of the problems for a novelist in Ireland is the fact that there are no formal manners. I mean some people have beautiful manners but there's no kind of agreed form of manners. ↗

— John McGahern

#also #beautiful #fact #form #formal