9 quotes found
“The novel should tell the truth, as I see the truth, or as the novelist persuades me to see it. And one more demand: I expect the novelist to aspire to improve the world. ... As a novelist, I want ...”
“I think that at the bottom of all art lies the impulse to preserve.”
“Being a novelist is not the sort of thing we can shut off. It infests every bit of us until we lose the boundary between Person and Writer, like one of those color charts where it is impossible to ...”
“The novelist is more like a pregnant woman who delivers her own child unaided. A messy procedure, with lots of groaning.”
“A novelist is essentially a person who covers distance through his patience, slowly, like an ant. A novelist impresses us not by his demonic and romantic vision, but by his patience.”
“Passionate attraction to someone of the opposite sex will make a hero or a fool of a novelist each time.”
“Persons curious in chronology may, if they like, work out from what they already know of the Wimsey family that the action of the book takes place in 1935; but if they do, they must not be querulou...”
“No matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist.”
