My ears become my conduit to the world. In the darkness I listen—to thrillers, to detective novels, to romances; to family sagas, potboilers and historical novels; to ghost stories and classic fiction and chick lit; to bonkbusters and history books...
Perhaps reading and writing books is one of the last defences human dignity has left, because in the end they remind us of what God once reminded us before He too evaporated in this age of relentless humiliations—that we are more than ourselves; th...
We've been trained to live a life of moral cowardice while all the time comforting ourselves that we are nature's rebels. But in truth we've never got upset & excited about anything; we're like the sheep we shot the Aborigines to make way for, docile...
When a woman's face is wrinkled And her hairs are sprinkled, With gray, Lackaday! Aside she's cast, No one respect will pay; Remember, Lasses, remember. And while the sun shines make hay: You must not expect in December, The flowers you gathered in M...
Overuse at best is needless clutter; at worst, it creates the impression that the characters are overacting, emoting like silent film stars. Still, an adverb can be exactly what a sentence needs. They can add important intonation to dialogue, or subt...
I always think I know the way a novel will go. I write maps on oversized art pads like the kind I carried around in college when I was earnest about drawing. I need to have some idea of the shape of the novel, where its headed, so that I can proceed ...
Cats are good at keeping clean [...] Dogs are good at running forever without getting tired. And I think that pigs are good at being optimistic and not giving up even when things are really bad. So today we're going to do things the pig way, okay?
A novel examines not reality but existence. And existence is not what has occurred, existence is the realm of human possibilities, everything that man can become, everything he's capable of. Novelists draw up the map of existence by discovering this ...
Sometimes I wish I could go back in time, and be the one who ended up in that accident, completely dead... but you know what? It wouldn't change anything. All I can do now that they're dead is to go through the actions of living without really living...
How can I expect readers to know who I am if I do not tell them about my family, my friends, the relationships in my life? Who am I if not where I fit in the world, where I fit in the lives of the people dear to me?
Alfred is taken past this broom, and enters this room; which can only be described as 'piecemeal'. It is full of pieces of fish-market paraphernalia, pieces of military-regalia; and pieces of rusted-steel. It is full of these spiky-hooks, fishmongery...
The fire alarm went off. Fire engines came racing; we all rushed out on the gravel drive, everyone thinking it was us. In fact, one of the elderly residents of Saltram had left a pan on the oven in her flat. Apparently this happens all the time. The ...
We've hired the calmest babies in the world to play the hysterical Thomas. One did finally start to cry but stopped every time Chris [Newman (assistant director)] yelled 'Action'. ... Babies smiled all afternoon. Buddhist babies. They didn't cry once...
Eliot was scornful of idle women readers who imagined themselves the heroines of French novels, and of self-regarding folk who saw themselves in the most admirable character in a novel, and she hoped for more nuanced engagement from her own readers. ...
We have no time to waste on insignificant books, hollow books, books that are there to please... We want books that cost their authors a great deal, books where you can feel the years of work, the backache, the writer's block, the author's panic at t...
Sir,’ said Stephen, ‘I read novels with the utmost pertinacity. I look upon them--I look upon good novels--as a very valuable part of literature, conveying more exact and finely-distinguished knowledge of the human heart and mind than almost any ...
A deadline is, simply put, optimism in its most kick-ass form. It's a potent force that, when wielded with respect, will level any obstacle in its path. This is especially true when it comes to creative pursuits.
Starting with the hypothesis that all the characters in Women in Love suffer from acute dissociation of sensibility, it becomes clear that psychological reintegration is no longer possible for them, and complete divorce between reason and emotion, mi...
People who for years had not looked for things in booked found new appetites for knowledge when they spoke to him. To someone who came in asking for the latest novel he might sell not only the novel but a biological treatise on the life of ants, an e...
You keep out of my bed,” said Danny, for he knew that Joe Portagee had come to stay. The way he sat in a chair and crossed his knees had an appearance of permanence.
Idly, Wick wondered if he should feel insulted. Then he decided there really wasn't any room for considering an insult with all the fear running rampant in his mind. Maybe he was quiet on the outside, but he knew he was running around screaming insid...
