A novel is just a story that hasn’t yet discovered a way to be brief.
– George Saunders
Related Quotes:
- Now, my novel begins. No, now I begin my novel-”and yet I cannot decide whether to call myself I or she. – Elizabeth Hardwick
- A story is a really weird art object that should contain life but not be enslaved by the banality. – George Saunders
- What story will your life tell? Love your story. Live your story. Lead your story. – Richie Norton
- Those who have become great have only discovered something that the rest of the world has not discovered. – Sunday Adelaja
- When I discovered music -” when I discovered the craft of shaping a song -” my being fell into place. – Charlotte Eriksson
- Wisdom is not always discovered in a book, true wisdom is discovered in the knowing that you know nothing. – Pasha Cook
- I don’t think wood was discovered in Britain until the 1970’s. That’s when I discovered it anyway. – Craig Ferguson
- A good-enough novel violently written now is better than a perfect novel meticulously written never. – Elizabeth Gilbert
- The only thing which can tell us about the novel is the novel. – Edwin Muir
- As far as I can tell, a young-adult novel is a regular novel that people actually read. – Stephen Colbert
- A novel is always more complicated than it seems at the beginning. Indeed a novel should be more complicated than it seems at the beginning. – John Irving
- You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you’re writing. – Gene Wolfe
- He came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness. – George Saunders
- I guess you just have to trust your kids, trust that their innate interest in life will win out in the end, don’t you think? – George Saunders
- . . . Absurdism was really just realism seen from close to the bottom. – George Saunders
- Once again I am only who I am. – George Saunders
- Irony is just honesty with the volume cranked up. – George Saunders
- Though firm, we are never too firm, though we love fun, we never have fun in a silly way that makes us appear ridiculous, unless that is our intent. – George Saunders
- Each of us is the best we can be when we are fully present, focused yet relaxed, curious yet non-judgmental, committed yet flexible. – John Kuypers
- The Master is cordial yet stern, awe-inspiring yet not fierce and respectful yet at ease. – Confucius
- The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story. – Ursula K Le Guin
- It is easy to arrange the words in a story born out of a dream; for a story without a dream, a story itself is not enough. – Dejan Stojanovic
- The humorous story is American, the comic story is English, the witty story is French. – Mark Twain
- When you write a story you’re telling yourself the story. When you rewrite your main job is taking out all the things that are NOT the story. – Stephen King
- I always like the story behind the story more than the story itself. – AD Posey
- The story it told was unremarkable: a tale of love found and lost- the oldest story in the world. The only story. – Anita Diamant
- The greatest story every(any)one can tell is the story of their life. Just don’t let the climax of your story be unrealized dreams. – Unarine Ramaru
- Mystery is what makes women, woman. A woman without mystery is no woman. She is a girl who has yet discovered the depths of her heart. – Imania Margria
- Thy eyes hold countless stars yet to be discovered. – Avijeet Das
- The world truly is my oyster, the difficulty is… I haven’t discovered the ALL of the tools to shuck it yet. – Raymond D Longoria Jr
- I have an idea for a new book. It’s a novel about a beautiful yet sensitive author whose spirit is crushed by her domineering editor. Do you like it? – Annie Barrows
- Many parents have discovered, perhaps with some guilt, that they can read a story to a child while thinking of something else. – Daniel Kahneman
- A man reading the ????ens novel wished that it might never end. Men read a ????ens story six times because they knew it so well. – GK Chesterton
- The most exciting part of writing a novel is when the characters take control of the story – Brandt Legg
- The Bible is the story so far in the true novel that God is still writing. – NT Wright
- Sometimes just looking into a person’s eyes can tell a graphic story and a brilliant novel if you have the ability to turn it into words. – LL Caulton
- Behind every novel is a greater story of how it came to be published. – TL Rese
- If a novel was a map of a country, a story was the bright silver pin that marked the crossroads. – Ann Patchett
- There were only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides. – George Orwell
- Writing a novel is agony. – George Orwell