#novelists

Like most novelists, I like to do exactly the opposite of what I'm told. It's in my nature as a novelist. Novelists can't trust anything they haven't seen with their own eyes or touched with their own hands. (Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech, JERUSALEM POST, Feb. 15, 2009) ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#truth #writers #writing #nature

Military people never seem to apologize for killing each other yet novelists feel ashamed for writing some nice inert paper book that is not certain to be read by anybody. ↗

— Leonora Carrington

#military #novelists #writing #military

Short-story writing requires an exquisite sense of balance. Novelists, frankly, can get away with more. A novel can have a dull spot or two, because the reader has made a different commitment. ↗

— Lynn Abbey

#balance #because #commitment #different #dull

Stories in which the destruction of society occurs are explorations of social fears and issues that filmmakers, novelists, playwrights, painters have been examining for a long time. ↗

— J. J. Abrams

#destruction #examining #fears #filmmakers #issues

Kingsley Amis was one of a trio of brilliant comic novelists who made English literature sparkle in the twentieth century. ↗

— Russell Baker

#century #comic #english #english literature #literature

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 do not think men have more talent. There are a great many women in the arts; novelists, painters, sculptors, poets-but the proportion is far lower in the field of song writing. ↗

— Dorothy Fields

#far #field #great #i #i do

I think, in common with a lot of novelists, I wasn't the most athletic guy at school. ↗

— Chris Cleave

#common #guy #i #i think #lot

Here's a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they'd intended to write. ↗

— Michael Cunningham

#being #being honest #book #finished #here