The nation which once held the creed that greatness is achieved by production, is now told that it is achieved by squalor..

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present..

As a novelist, I ask of myself only that I tell the truth and that I tell it beautifully..

I think women are foolish to pretend they are equal to men, they are far superior and always have been..

As a novelist, you deepen your characters as you go, adding layers. As a reporter, you try to peel layers away: observing subjects enough to get bene….

History is the history of human behavior, and human behavior is the raw material of fiction. Most people recognize that novelists do research to get ….

Horror writers can write about everything in the real world that a mainstream novelist can--plus the supernatural, which is the most fertile field fo….

The novelist must be his own most harsh critic and also his own most loving admirer and about both he must say nothing..

Just for the record, she still loves you. She wouldn't bother to torture you if she didn't..

I do not seek the good of others as a sanction for my right to exist, nor do I recognize the good of others as a justification for their seizure of m….

Possibly the Creator did not make the world chiefly for the purpose of providing studies for gifted novelists; but if He had done so, we can scarcely….

It is when we are most lost that we sometimes find our truest friends..

It is morally obscene to regard wealth as an anonymous, tribal product and to talk about 'redistributing' it..

Personally, I have never wished I were a male novelist..

You have to say I am forgiven again and again until it becomes the story you believe about yourself..

TZETZE (or TSETSE) FLY, n. An African insect ("Glossina morsitans") whose bite is commonly regarded as nature's most efficacious remedy for insomnia,….

Of Dickens' style it is impossible to speak in praise. It is jerky, ungrammatical, and created by himself in defiance of rules... No young novelist s….

A novelist must know what his last chapter is going to say and one way or another work toward that last chapter. ... To me it is utterly basic, yet i….

I only became a novelist because I thought I had missed my chance to become a historian..

Rebecca Goldstein is a rare find among contemporary novelists: she has intellectual muscle as well as a tender emotional reach..

Great sorrow or great joy should bring intense hunger--not abstinence from food, as our novelists will have it..