Best 1169 quotes in «novel quotes» category

Whenever I’d get howlin’ over something, he’d grab my ass up from wherever I was and head straight for the john. Momma said my head would get banged up along the way, but she said it was probably bein’ dunked under water that made me stupid.

Whenever you are transplanted, like me, you will understand how very delightful it is to meet with anything at all like what one has left behind.

When he had brushed a thin coat of dust off the pebbled leather cover of one volume, he saw the words: Register of All Wizards and Warlocks of the South Kingdom and of the North Kingdom from the Beginning of the World to the Present Time.

When he spoke of love, it was in the manner of someone who can recite a phrase in a foreign language but has no idea what it means. He only knows that it sounds pretty.

When he unleashes on her everything falls together. Like a crick in the neck snapped into place, the boy's brain pops and is put right. It is a beautiful undoing, a beautiful becoming. He doesn't stop to think about it when the punches follow her down to the ground. He doesn't stop to notice when she goes still or when the pool of blood under her head pillows out into a great, liquid heart. He doesn't stop until he's pulled off her and he doesn't start to think again until that night, when he's back at home. For hours and hours his brain stays beautifully popped into place.

When he told F. of his disgust at the eyelid's movement, he must have been sixteen. When he decided to study medicine, he must have been nineteen; by then, having already signed on to the contract to forget, he no longer remembered what he had said to F. three years before. Too bad for him. The memory might have alerted him, might have helped him see that his choice of medicine was wholly theoretical, made without the slightest self- knowledge. Thus he studied medicine for three years before giving up with a sense of shipwreck. What to choose after those lost years? What to attach to, if his inner self should keep as silent as it had before? He walked down the broad outside staircase of the medical school for the last time, with the feeling that he was about to find himself alone on a platform all the trains had left.

When he was in college, a famous poet made a useful distinction for him. He had drunk enough in the poet's company to be compelled to describe to him a poem he was thinking of. It would be a monologue of sorts, the self-contemplation of a student on a summer afternoon who is reading Euphues. The poem itself would be a subtle series of euphuisms, translating the heat, the day, the student's concerns, into symmetrical posies; translating even his contempt and boredom with that famously foolish book into a euphuism. The poet nodded his big head in a sympathetic, rhythmic way as this was explained to him, then told him that there are two kinds of poems. There is the kind you write; there is the kind you talk about in bars. Both kinds have value and both are poems; but it's fatal to confuse them. In the Seventh Saint, many years later, it had struck him that the difference between himself and Shakespeare wasn't talent - not especially - but nerve. The capacity not to be frightened by his largest and most potent conceptions, to simply (simply!) sit down and execute them. The dreadful lassitude he felt when something really large and multifarious came suddenly clear to him, something Lear-sized yet sonnet-precise. If only they didn't rush on him whole, all at once, massive and perfect, leaving him frightened and nerveless at the prospect of articulating them word by scene by page. He would try to believe they were of the kind told in bars, not the kind to be written, though there was no way to be sure of this except to attempt the writing; he would raise a finger (the novelist in the bar mirror raising the obverse finger) and push forward his change. Wailing like a neglected ghost, the vast notion would beat its wings into the void. Sometimes it would pursue him for days and years as he fled desperately. Sometimes he would turn to face it, and do battle. Once, twice, he had been victorious, objectively at least. Out of an immense concatenation of feeling, thought, word, transcendent meaning had come his first novel, a slim, pageant of a book, tombstone for his slain conception. A publisher had taken it, gingerly; had slipped it quietly into the deep pool of spring releases, where it sank without a ripple, and where he supposes it lies still, its calm Bodoni gone long since green. A second, just as slim but more lurid, nightmarish even, about imaginary murders in an imaginary exotic locale, had been sold for a movie, though the movie had never been made. He felt guilt for the producer's failure (which perhaps the producer didn't feel), having known the book could not be filmed; he had made a large sum, enough to finance years of this kind of thing, on a book whose first printing was largely returned.

When I lifted up the skin, a fat kidney worm dripping with gore raised its bald, blind head and glared at me.

When I'm writing I don't want anyone else in the room - including myself.

When it becomes acceptable to kill another man or woman, childhood dies.” whispered Laurence. “When it becomes acceptable to kill a child…humanity dies.

When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme, to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.

when you walk the path of revenge, know that someone will always follow your trail

When you are convinced that what you offer is yours, whether it be mediocre or of standard quality, your originality will make people love you in a way you did not expect.

Who cares about fault? As my dad would say, ‘Blame is like your rear-end and reflection. Seeing either always leaves you looking back.’ I’m more worried about what’s in front of me. And right now . . . the view is all messed up.” ~ Ellia

Why are you behaving like this? You know how much I love you … and I believe you love me as much, so why are you avoiding me?

Wholly reminiscent of Rod Serling’s 1959—1964 series the Twilight Zone or The Mercury Theatre’s October 30, 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds. And let us not forget the X-Files.

Who would have imagined" he said, "when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia.

Why must some of us deliberate between brands of toothpaste while others deliberate between damp dirt and bone dust to quiet the fire of an empty stomach lining?

Why else do we write and write except to move our readers?

With every fall of the sun and rise of the moon, I can hear it. The Prophecy. It echoes through the halls of time. It is written on the surface of every star. Even the sun and moon cannot withhold the news of the second coming. I hear it. And I fear it.

With Mr. Montgomery, I set out to see what it would be like to write a novel in 30 days. It was hell! I'd do it again in a minute.

Wisdom tolerates blustered opinions, the better to dismiss them later with discovery.

Writers are like onions, layers upon layers upon layers.

Would you like to come in?" I said. My hands were sweaty. Inside my chest an ocean heaved and crashed and heaved again. "I would," he said. I saw his Adam's apple jerk as he swallowed. "Thank you." I was distracted by that thank you. We had moved past the language of formality long ago. It was strange to relearn it with each other.

Writing a novel is like traveling the universe on foot.

With the right tools, you can write anything ...

Write what you want to write and would like to read, not for any invisible audience. Your readers will find you.

Writing a novel is like having a dream.

You can’t be friends with someone you have feelings for. It’ll just be a constant reminder of what you can’t have. It’s like putting boiling water in an ice cold glass. It’s gonna bust and make a mess.

You can’t blame yourself for what Socrates did. Those birds came because he wanted them to come, at least a part of him did. The pissed off part. Let that roll around in your brain for a while.” Jamie considered this. “No, Eddie. The hurt part, that’s what did it.” The crow shrieked again. It seemed louder, and that meant it was closer. Or maybe it was another crow, maybe several. Jamie and Eddie looked toward the sky, listening to the screams. Jamie spoke first. “We can’t let it happen again. We may be the only ones who know the truth about what Socrates can do.” “That thought probably has occurred to Socrates too.

Yet if he had been asked… if he were happy… He would have admitted readily enough that he was uncomfortable, that he was cold, and badly fed, and venomous; that his clothes were in rags, and his feet and knees and elbows raw and bleeding through much walking and crawling; that he was in ever-present peril of life, and that he really did not expect to survive the adventure he was about to thrust himself into voluntarily, but all this had nothing to do with happiness: that was something he never stopped to think about.

You are not dead until you are warm and dead!

You battled monsters. You sweat and cried your way to this one prolific moment where you finally realize that those dark days and sleepless nights were pre-requisites to your becoming.

You Can't Change Your Life... Until You Change Your Heart, and You Can't Change Your Heart... Until You Change Your Mind!

You certainly remember this scene from dozens of films: a boy and a girl are running hand in hand in a beautiful spring (or summer) landscape. Running, running, running and laughing. By laughing the two runners are proclaiming to the whole world, to audiences in all the movie theaters: "We're happy, we're glad to be in the world, we're in agreement with being!" It's a silly scene, a cliche, but it expresses a basic human attitude: serious laughter, laughter "beyond joking." All churches, all underwear manufacturers, all generals, all political parties, are in agreement about that kind of laughter, and all of them rush to put the image of the two laughing runners on the billboards advertising their religion, their products, their ideology, their nation, their sex, their dishwashing powder.

You Don't Have To Be A Crook To Be Successful!

You have always been my only muse. I cannot paint or sculpt. I have only my words to render your likeness. Sometimes I wish I were both God and Adam so I could tear out my rib and create you from my own flesh. I would say I’d create you from my heart, but I gave that to you when you left me. But that’s a cliché, isn’t it? Sadly, that’s all I have these days. The whole story is a cliché. I desired you. I ate of you. I lost you. That ancient story – older than the Garden, old as the Snake. I would have liked to call this story of ours The Temptation but the word temptation, once the province of pious theologians, has now been co-opted by every third second-rate romance novelist. And although I loved you, my beautiful girl, this is not a romance novel.

You’ll be civilized or we’ll leave your arse here.” Johan... "Vital Perception

You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel.

You know what feels really fucking awesome? Loving someone so much that it's all consuming. Telling that person you love them, even though they refuse to say it back. And then finally hearing them say that they do love you, but to someone else. To someone they have slept with. Someone that isn't you. I want to forget I heard those three words. I want to dissolve the images I have in my heard of her with him. I think I'm going to throw up.

You let this become a mess,” he cursed, as though he'd walked up to Tam and asked him to be drop dead gorgeous and vulnerable, just so that he would have his first guy crush. “I didn't let anything happen. I just…felt it. I think he feels it too,” he argued, trying to talk sense into him. Why was this a bad thing? Konnor didn't have anything to do with Tam anymore, so why did it matter? “Oh God. You're in serious shit now,” Mack bemoaned, rolling his eyes and rubbing his forehead.

You’re different, and I know that’s probably the most cliché response ever given, but it’s the truth. When I look at you, it’s as if I’m reading a novel. No matter how much time I spend studying your pages, there will always be more for me to learn, deeper layers of complexity to baffle me, and plot twists that’ll leave me speechless.

Your passions don’t have to connect to one another and no one needs to sign off on them. Passion isn’t logical… it’s only the fuel which keeps our souls alive. Let it be that simple.

You're not just an assistant — you're mine, Winnie. You're my woman. You're the one I want in my life. I want you at my side, in my home and in my bed

You’re thinking, maybe it would be easier to let it slip let it go say ”I give up” one last time and give him a sad smile. You’re thinking it shouldn’t be this hard, shouldn’t be this dark, thinking love could flow easily with no holding back and you’ve seen others find their match and build something great together, of each other, like two halves fitting perfectly and now they achieve great things one by one, always together, and it seems grand. But you love him. Love him like a black stone in your chest you couldn’t live without because it fits in there. Makes you who you are and the thought of him gone—no more—makes your chest tighten up and maybe this is your fairytale. Maybe this is your castle. You could get it all on a shiny piece of glass with wooden stools and a neverending blooming garden but that’s not yours. This is yours. The cracks and the faults, the ugly words in the winter walking home alone and angry but falling asleep thinking you love him. This is your fairy tale. The quiet in the hallway, wishing for him to turn around, tell you to stay, tell you to please don’t go I need you like you need me and maybe it’s not a Jane Austen novel but this is your novel and your castle and you can run from it your whole life but this is here in front of you. Maybe nurture it? Sweet girl, maybe close the world off and look at him for an hour or two. This is your fairy. It ain’t perfect and it ain’t honey sweet with roses on the bed. It’s real and raw and ugly at times. But this is your love. Don’t throw it away searching for someone else’s love. Don’t be greedy. Instead, shelter it. Protect it. Capture every second of easy, pull through every storm of hardship. And when you can, look at him, lying next to you, trusting you not to harm him. Trusting you not to go. Be someone’s someone for someone. Be that someone for him. That’s your fairy tale. This is your castle. Now move in. Build a home. Build a house. Build a safety around things you love. It’s yours if you make it so. Welcome home, sweet girl, it will be all be fine.

You said my name and my heart went rogue

About writing I learned that always, always, always it's necessary to haunt your settings. I'm a big researcher. All my fiction is based on tons of digging. But the vital importance of actually traveling to the settings of a novel really hit me. And it's not just the setting details, not just the visuals and other sensory data, that will pop. You'll find surprising clues that swerve your story in whole new, deeper, surprising, more organic ways.

You taste injustice, even if it’s fictional, really taste it,it has a way of doing that. Sometimes, you can never put the shoe on the other foot. We can’t go back in time and know what it was like to be a black person then. Even today, when things are supposed to be so much better, not one of you can understand what it’s like to be black, to live with the knowledge of what happened to your ancestry and still face injustice. But that book makes us taste it and, reading it, we know how bitter that taste is and we know we don’t like it. But that bitter wakes you up, and when you wake up, you open your mind to things in this world, you make yourself think. Then you’ll decide you don’t like the taste of injustice, not for you and not for anyone, and you’ll understand that even though all the battles can’t be won, that doesn’t mean you won’t fight.

You shouldn’t have done that, Dave.

You’ve lied to me. You’ve hid things from me. How dare you talk to me like we’re still friends, like we ever mattered to you at all?--Sydney Field