True stories, autobiographical stories, like some novels, begin long ago, before the acts in the account, before the birth of some of the people in the tale.
Harold Brodkey

Well, to be honest I think I'm a better short story writer than a novelist. Novels I find very hard, hours and hours, weeks and weeks, of conscious thought - whereas short stories slip out painlessly in a few days.
Eric Brown

Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.
Octavia Butler

When I do a novel, I don't really use the script, I use the book; when I did Apocalypse Now, I used Heart of Darkness. Novels usually have so much rich material.
Francis Ford Coppola

When I first started to get into writing, it was via music. I'd generate ideas for songs that would turn into stories, then they'd turn into novels. I was biased toward music.
Irvine Welsh

When I look back over my novels what I find is that when I think I'm finished with a theme, I'm generally not. And usually themes will recur from novel to novel in odd, new guises.
Richard Russo

When I was growing up, I always read horror books, while my sister read romance novels.
Dorothy Allison

When I wrote The Onion Field, I realized that my first two novels were just practice.
Joseph Wambaugh

When you're my age and you see a story, you better go for it pretty quickly. I'd just like to get a few more novels under my belt.
John Le Carre

Will Shatner, Jonathan Frakes of Star Trek have already put novels out.
Bruce Boxleitner

Within my own life, I read all the beloved novels by lamps of vegetable oil; I saw the Standard Oil invading my own village, I saw gas lamps in the Chinese shops in Shanghai; and I saw their elimination by electric lights.
Hu Shih

Writers of novels and romance in general bring a double loss to their readers; robbing them of their time and money; representing men, manners, and things, that never have been, or are likely to be.
Mary Wortley Montagu

Writing novels is the most exciting.
Sidney Sheldon

Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.
Anita Brookner

You don't want to dwell on your enemies, you know. I basically feel so superior to my critics for the simple reason that they haven't done what I do. Most book reviewers haven't written 11 novels. Many of them haven't written one.
John Irving

You have to be kind of clued into them, they are a world of their own, and most people find them disappointing because the best short stories are not constructed like novels.
Tobias Wolff