Read through the most famous quotes by topic #novels
There was an electric buzzing sound that was constantly on, acting as background music like a million cicadas in the forest. A constant white noise. ↗
After closely examining my conscience, I venture to state that in my historical novels I intended the content to be just as modern and up-to-date as in the contemporary ones. ↗
My hands are in his hair and his arms wrap around my waist tighter. I know what Henry does to me. I’m space bound. A rocket about to blast off. And I want Henry to send me to the moon. ↗
The only time I've ever learned anything from a review was when John Lanchester wrote a piece in the Guardian about my second novel, The Heather Blazing. He said that, together with the previous novel, it represented a diptych about the aftermath of Irish independence. I simply hadn't known that – and I loved the grandeur of the word "diptych". I went around quite snooty for a few days, thinking: "I wrote a diptych." [Colm Tóibín, Novelist – Portrait of the Artist, The Guardian, 19 February 2013] ↗
Afterwards, as he held me and stroked my hair, my body was singing with pleasure, I couldn’t believe I had waited so long. I thought of how we had wasted a whole year we could have had together and I felt so sad I wanted to cry. ↗
A short story is a sprint, a novel is a marathon. Sprinters have seconds to get from here to there and then they are finished. Marathoners have to carefully pace themselves so that they don't run out of energy (or in the case of the novelist-- ideas) because they have so far to run. To mix the metaphor, writing a short story is like having a short intense affair, whereas writing a novel is like a long rich marriage. ↗
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