#novels

Novels are like paintings, specifically watercolors. Every stroke you put down you have to go with. Of course you can rewrite, but the original strokes are still there in the texture of the thing. ↗

— Joan Didion

#down #every #go #like #novels

When you give your heart away, you usually get it back in pieces, fragments. And often, a great deal of time passes before you realize that every piece wasn’t returned to you—and probably never will be. You crave nothing more than to get those small—but vital—fragments back; to return to the unbroken, undamaged version of yourself. But what's been broken cannot be unbroken, and so all you can do is learn to live with the void of the missing pieces, to somehow find beauty in the wreckage. And so I did. Sophie Lenon ↗

— Krystal McLean

#broken-heart #dark #hope #lovers #romance

Every author really wants to have letters printed in the papers. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels. ↗

— P. G. Wodehouse

#down #drops #every #grade #ladder

I never accepted why there should be some invisible, wavy cutoff line separating Great Fiction from phosphorescent beauties and dollhouse miniatures, novels that contain a whole world in a snow globe. ↗

— James Wolcott

#beauties #contain #fiction #globe #great

I love general history. That's all I read really. I don't read novels, I read history. I love it. I live in an area that's really rich in Civil War history. I live in Kentucky on a farm. A lot of revolution, a lot of military history I love. ↗

— Steve Zahn

#civil #civil war #farm #general #history

The actual Blue Rose murders, which lie at the core of the three novels, yield various incorrect solutions which assume the status of truth. ↗

— Peter Straub

#assume #blue #core #incorrect #lie

I like to know the places I write about. I feel like it helps me ground the novel. My novels are 'realistic novels,' but they can also be fantastical, so it's nice to have a setting that grounds them a little bit. ↗

— John Green

#also #bit #feel #ground #grounds

We don't tend to write about disease in fiction - not just teen novels but all American novels - because it doesn't fit in with our idea of the heroic romantic epic. There is room only for sacrifice, heroism, war, politics and family struggle. ↗

— John Green

#american #because #disease #epic #family

The real question is: How do you react? What do you do next? Evade responsibilities? Bury yourself in work? What do you do? All three of my novels take up that question, although none gives an answer. ↗

— David Guterson

#answer #bury #evade #gives #how

I asked a French critic a couple of years ago why my books did so well in France. He said it was because in my novels people both act and think. I got a kick out of that. ↗

— Jim Harrison

#ago #asked #because #books #both