Asking the author of historical novels to teach you about history is like expecting the composer of a melody to provide answers about radio transmission. Lion Feuchtwanger
But novels are never about what they are about; that is, there is always deeper, or more general, significance. The author may not be aware of this till she is pretty far along with it. Diane Johnson
Don't patronize the chain bookstores. Every time I see some author scheduled to read and sign his books at a chain bookstore, I feel like telling him he's stabbing the independent bookstores in the back. Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Every author really wants to have letters printed in the papers. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels. P. G. Wodehouse
For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible. Arthur Schopenhauer
For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words. Ken Follett
Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted.
Robert Benchley
Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted. Robert Benchley