c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
There are empty spaces that must be respected – those often long periods when a person can’t see the pictures or find the words and needs to be left alone.
— Tove Jansson, Fair Play
If you need philosophy and you're waiting on the gas chamber, stick to Socrates. At least he had a sense of humor.
— Tyler Patrick Wood, On Killing and Innocence: The Chronicles of Henry Fellows
A fugitive on the run with a plan for the future is the definition of hubris.
— Tyler Patrick Wood, On Killing and Innocence: The Chronicles of Henry Fellows
Paths cross all the time in this world of ours, sometimes in the strangest places- Charles Jacobs
— Stephen King, Revival
this is very important, so listen carefully. As I told you before, there is no middle ground with me. You take either all of me or nothing. That’s the way it works. If you don’t mind continuing the way we are now, I don’t see why we can’t do that. I don’t know how long we’d be able to, but I’ll do everything in my power to see that it happens. When I’m able to come see you, I will. But when I can’t, I can’t. I can’t just come to see you whenever I feel like it. You may not be satisfied with that arrangement, but if you don’t want me to go away again, you have to take all of me. Everything. All the baggage I carry, everything that clings to me. And I will take all of you. Do you understand that? Do you understand what that means?
— Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?
— George Orwell, 1984
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?
— George Orwell, 1984
The problem with love is that there is so much of it to give." King Tommy
— Monique Golda Nerman, KING TOMMY
She closed the distance between them and gave him a tentative hug. He was liberally cologned, with a scent that incited bewildering memories. She circled him, not knowing why. She had only met him a few weeks back, yet tonight, something about him triggered old memories, of a time, a person.	Maybe not.	What she did know, he lacked that special ingredient that moved her. Dull as ditch water. He was sufficiently polite, but that was about all she could say. –Michael Benzehabe, from the novel Unassimilated
— Michael Benzehabe
This dull, difficult novel I have brought with me on my trip—I keep trying to read it. I have gone back to it so many times, each time dreading it and each time finding it no better than the last time, that by now it has become something of an old friend. My old friend the bad novel.
— Lydia Davis, Can't and Won't: Stories
I was told, and indeed I saw several examples, that neither time nor place was much minded, and that I might hazard being equally careless of chronology and geography; but I piqued myself on having studied Aristotle, and scrupulously attended to the probabilities of time and place.
— Charlotte Turner Smith, Marchmont
A good novel can be a doorstop to despair.
— Colum McCann, Let the Great World Spin
It was a hymn with the force of a march, a march with the majesty of a hymn. It was the song of soldiers bearing sacred banners and of priests carrying swords. It was an anthem to the sanctity of strength.
— Ayn Rand, We the Living
The world is a huge space, but the space that will take you in - and itdoesn't have to be very big - is nowhere to be found. You seek a voice, but what doyou get? Silence. You look for silence, but guess what? All you hear over and overand over is the voice of this omen. And sometimes this prophetic voice pushes asecret switch hidden deep inside your brain.
— Haruki Murakami
Reading a great novel gives the same feeling you have when you fall in love.
— Luigina Sgarro
His voice was reassuring and calm, his expression soft, his eyes brighter than ever. Oh Ahura Mazda, she’d never wanted any man so intently in all her life. She ached to have him touch her, kiss her, taste her. And Ivar did as she wished. He put her hand to his nose to smell her skin, kissed her inner wrist to taste her, his lips lingered over her racing pulse. Finally, it was confirmed in actions and direct words, spoken aloud and repeated seven times… She felt the rush of desire ripping through her body, an intense sensation of warmth upon her skin, the blissful waves of uneasiness swamped through her, tingling her nerves.
— Widad Akreyi, The Viking's Kurdish Love: A True Story of Zoroastrians' Fight for Survival, Years 988-1003
Buddy if it was me sitting across the dining room table I would have killed that son of a bitch long before your mom had the chance.-Caesar
— Christine Whitmarsh, Canyon Road
A moment later, Vesta became aware that her life was passing her by in that busy city, where no man could capture her heart… What if she married someone, who wasn’t mentally prepared to keep his Zoroastrian identity intact? Or what if her future husband was forced to convert to Islam? What if he tried to force her to convert as well? What if he suddenly decided to become an extremist and called for Sharia Laws in Kurdland? She shivered at the thought.
— Widad Akreyi, The Viking's Kurdish Love: A True Story of Zoroastrians' Fight for Survival, Years 988-1003
As far as I can tell, a young-adult novel is a regular novel that people actually read.
— Stephen Colbert
Mark Twin
— Mark Twin
In the presence of Esch, values have hidden their faces. Order, loyalty, sacrifice—he cherishes all these words, but exactly what do they represent? Sacrifice for what? Demand what sort of order? He doesn't know.If a value has lost its concrete content, what is left of it? A mere empty form; an imperative that goes unheeded and, all the more furious, demands to be heard and obeyed. The less Esch knows what he wants, the more furiously he wants it. Esch: the fanaticism of the era with no God. Because all values have hidden their faces, anything can be considered a value. Justice, order—Esch seeks them now in the trade union struggle, then in religion; today in police power, tomorrow in the mirage of America, where he dreams of emigrating. He could be a terrorist or a repentant terrorist turning in his comrades, or a party militant or a cult member a kamikaze prepared to sacrifice his life. All the passions rampaging through the bloody history of our time are taken up, unmasked, and terrifyingly displayed in Esch's modest adventure.
— Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel
In a novel, you'll find yourself in a world of possibilities. You'll find shelter there.
— Alice Hoffman, Survival Lessons
What drove such people to their sinister occupations? Spite? Certainly, but also the desire for order. Because the desire for order tries to transform the human world into an inorganic reign in which everything goes well, everything functions as a subject of an impersonal will. The desire for order is at the same time a desire for death, because life is a perpetual violation of order. Or, inversely, the desire for order is a virtuous pretext by which man's hatred for man justifies its crimes.
— Milan Kundera, Farewell Waltz
A novel is a writer's rant disguised as entertainment...
— James Minter
We took morphine, diamorphine, cyclozine, codeine, temazepam, nitrezepam, phenobarbitone, sodium amytal dextropropoxyphene, methadone, nalbuphine, pethidine, pentazocine, buprenorphine, dextromoramide chlormethiazole. The streets are awash with drugs that you can have for unhappiness and pain, and we took them all. Fuck it, we would have injected Vitamin C if only they'd made it illegal.
— Irwin Welsh
Andrew closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the memories of that night as the rest of the world moved on around him. He realized that even after all this time he hadn’t forgotten the smile she seemed to have patented, the light blue tank top she wore so well, or the way she had laughed when he accidentally spilled an entire can of Mountain Dew on the carpet she’d spent hours steam cleaning. And although he hadn’t kissed Cooper McKay that night, or even held her hand, he could still remember the feeling of finding out that love at first sight did truly exist.
— Joey  Jones, A Bridge Apart
Awake and asleep the novel is with you, dogging your footsteps. Strange formless bits of material float out from the ether about you and attach themselves to the main body of the story as though they had hung suspended in air for years, waiting.
— Edna Ferber, A Peculiar Treasure: Autobiography
If we can accept the laws of the universe, the ebb and flow of joy and tragedy, then we have everything we need to embrace our true freedom.
— Sarah Winman
Maybe. Just maybe... Lettie smiled. That would do. It might be an impossible plan but it's worth a try.
— Sam Gayton, The Snow Merchant
I should have never left the inn,' she whispered. 'I shouldn't have done it!'There was something in the ground that Ma had warned in her note. It was real. And Lettie hadn't listened, and now this...
— Sam Gayton, The Snow Merchant
They aren't capable of doing this... look their thoughts, look how they run, look their faces... So far this tells everything about them,...(Salem's Lot)
— Deyth Banger
My mother clutches at the collar of my shirt. I rub her back and feel her tears on my neck. It's been decades since our bodies have been this close. It's an odd sensation, like a torn ligament knitting itself back, lumpy and imperfect, usable as long as we know not to push it too hard.
— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before We Visit the Goddess
It’s good to go off and write a novel, but don’t stop doing writing practice.
— Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within
In April war was declared with Germany. Wilson and his cabinet—a cabinet that in its lack of distinction was strangely reminiscent of the twelve apostles—let loose the carefully starved dogs of war, and the press began to whoop hysterically against the sinister morals, sinister philosophy, and sinister music produced by the Teutonic temperament. Those who fancied themselves particularly broad-minded made the exquisite distinction that it was only the German Government which aroused them to hysteria; the rest were worked up to a condition of retching indecency. Any song which contained the word "mother" and the word "kaiser" was assured of a tremendous success. At last every one had something to talk about—and almost every one fully enjoyed it, as though they had been cast for parts in a sombre and romantic play.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
Bela had thought she knew what love felt like, but when she saw Sanjay at the airport after six long months, her heart gave a great, hurtful lurch, as though it were trying to leap out of her body to meet him. This, she thought. This is it. But it was only part of the truth. She would learn over the next years that love can feel a lot of different ways, and sometimes it can hurt a lot more.
— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Before We Visit the Goddess
The "if I had time" lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born - without the luxury of time.
— Julia Cameron, The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life
Suspending moral judgement is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding. From the viewpoint of the novel's wisdom, that fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity. Not that the novelist utterly denies that moral judgement is legitimate, but that she refuses it a place in the novel.
— Milan Kundera
The wind stirs through the trees, it moves the leaves, and it sways the branches—and yet it is unseen. The sound of it is detected, the effect of it is noticed, and yet it itself is unseen. In a way that is similar: the Spirit stirs in the heart, it moves emotions, it sways the mind, and by doing so causes a physical response to occur that defies human logic, and transcends perception.
— Calvin W. Allison, Strong Love Church
A familiarity had been activated in a reoccurringtheme that had been ignited from a recognizable old pattern of self distancing behavior. The tone of Laura’s voice and the poise of her body language seemed to shrug at the expectations of Ed’s reconciliatory efforts. It felt to Ed as though their relationship was right back to the same rugged place that it had been at before their vacation
—  right back to a recondite square one. It seemed like any connecting that had been accomplished had all unraveled into a recoiled heap of uncertainty.
The Intellectual Transcending Equation In Life:Occurrence Plus Perception Minus MaterialisticReasoning Divided By Nothing Equals SpiritualProgression, With A Remainder Of Blessings.
— Calvin W. Allison, Strong Love Church
The people inside were in intense worship; it seemed to Sarah like they were in another world or something. The pleasantness in the atmosphere drew her in. She felt welcomed, even though she had not been invited; noticed, even though she had not been seen; loved, even though she wasn’t known; and even though it didn’t make sense to her—it didn’t have to.
— Calvin W. Allison, Strong Love Church
Tess passed by the Church’s sign, and then made the turn right. Her expectations for a degree of improvement were met with passed echoes of indecisive hand claps from mental bodied insecurities that infiltrated her subconscious with a disruptive applause in an attempt to divert her focus from the road of progression by putting it back on her publicized devastations.
— Calvin W. Allison, Strong Love Church
Her face was the best of Raquel Welch and Christy Brinkley combined. All atop a curvaceous body that would make Rubens drop his paintbrush."-Adam W. Jones, Fate Ball
— Adam W. Jones, Fate Ball
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.
— C.S. Forester
And so there was a fundamental scepticism about the ability of any institution, even one like the novel, to tell us anything true.
— Garth Risk Hallberg, City on Fire
And now Nineteen persons having been hang'd, and one prest to death, and Eight more condemned, in all Twenty and Eight, of which above a third part were Members of some of the Churches of N. England, and more than half of them of a good Conversation in general, and not one clear'd; about Fifty having confest themselves to be Witches, of which not one Executed; above an Hundred and Fifty in Prison, and Two Hundred more accused; the Special Commision of Oyer and Terminer comes to a period.—Robert Calef 1692
— Robert Calef, Salem Witchcaft; Comprising More Wonders of the Invisible World
We are in the Dark to one another's Purposes and Intendments, and there are a thousand Intrigues in our little Matters, which will not presently confess their Design, even to sagacious Inquisitors...
— Joseph Glanville
Cases of typhoid take the following course:When the fever is at its height, life calls out to the patient: calls out to him as he wanders in his distant dream, and summons him in no uncertain voice. The harsh, imperious call reaches the spirit on that remote path that leads into the shadows, the coolness and peace. He hears the call of life, the clear, fresh, mocking summons to return to that distant scene which he had already left so far behind him, and already forgotten. And there may well up in him something like a feeling of same for a neglected duty; a sense of renewed energy, courage, and hope; he may recognize a bond existing still between him and that stirring, colourful, callous existence which he thought he had left so far behind him. Then, how far he may have wandered on his distant path, he will turn back--and live. But if he shudders when he hears life's voice, if the memory of that vanished scene and the sound of that lusty summons make him shake his head, make him put out his hand to ward off as he flies forward in the way of escape that has opened to him--then it is clear that the patient will die." Buddenbrooks
— Thomas Mann
Dare I ask Mao and his Communist Party?I fear my throat will be cut into two pieces.In the name of revolution, for thought crimes,Such questions can turn me to ashes.
— Zoë S. Roy, Calls Across the Pacific
It's terrific, Clare," Henry says, and we stare at each other and I think, "Don't leave me.
— Audrey Niffenger
Sometimes there are moments in life that defy human reasoning; unique occurrences that simply cannot properly be resolved with the natural mind. So it’s only when one reaches further than themselves, and out into the unseen realm of faith, that life’s most miraculous moments cantruly be discerned. For it is in these moments that God is making more known the reality of His existence; and more known to we who believe, the greatness of His power and love.
— Calvin W. Allison, Strong Love Church
The thoughts from a finite mind can at times be very similar to the clouds that move about over the surface of the earth. Both can cover a lot of ground, and can either disperse or increase in formation. Likewise—both are heavily influenced by the surrounding climate. Furthermore—a hard wind increases a fire’s spread, thunder proceeds a lightning strike, and when atmospheric water vapor accumulates, it produces clouds. Then, after an abundance of water has been condensed, the clouds will at some point release moisture; the rain/precipitation amount will range from the degree of abundance condensed.Similarly: an abundance of thoughts can also accumulate—eventually resulting in an overflow of emotion. The overflow can either be positive or negative—the determining factor relying on the characterization of the thoughts—whether they be positive or negative.
— Calvin W. Allison, Strong Love Church
Thundering, roaring, are the storms of life. Momentary hardships that, unveiled, reveal a purpose beyond carnal reasoning. The pain can get intense, the hurt can be severe, but one must look beyond themselves for conclusive answers. One must not examine their situations using finite logic to try to discover the deeper meaning behind the circumstance or its outcome. One must look beyond the surface of their own intellect, and see through the walls of their own understanding. The blueprint of life has been masterfully designed in such a way, that all things—no matter how they may seem—have a purpose; and that purpose will ultimately bringabout a greater good overall. The spiritual realm is truly realities base; and it is from there that truth derives. The mystery of the storm is revealed—cause and effect—the past, the present, and the future.
— Calvin W. Allison, Strong Love Church
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.
— Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Commercial fiction writing – where my bread is buttered – is fairly straightforward. The writing is simply efficiency and story. The more you have of one the less you need of the other.
— Joe Ducie
No! You stay alive! Submit, do you hear? You're strong, you survive. You stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far, I will find you . . . (Hawkeye / The Last of the Mohicans) 97
— James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans
Life isn't fair," comes the voice of Nana. She has told me that a thousand times. "What matters is how you handle it." I'm going to handle it by winning.
— Carolyn Lee Adams, Ruthless
Doubt you’d find anyone as dashingly charming as me
— Veronica Purcell, I'm Kita Duran
It flashed as a guiding light whilstDuran was lost in his dreams
— Veronica Purcell, I'm Kita Duran
Never once did I think you were less than a good person.
— Veronica Purcell, I'm Kita Duran
Good humour was miles behind a second cup of morning tea. It was too early for nonsense.
— Zeenat Mahal, The Contract
The Lord is like lightening. Startled by its appearance and momentarily blinded by the brightness of the flash, when the lightening strikes a person is either destroy or jolted to new life." Elias the Teacher
— Daniel Molyneux, The Angel of Antioch
In this otherworldly moment I am profoundly grateful to be here, to be alone, to experience this thing that no one has ever experienced and that no one else ever will.
— Carolyn Lee Adams, Ruthless
Novelists don't normally write about what's going on
—  they write about what's not going on.
My Greatest Failures has been My Greatest Success~
— Lamont Renzo Bracy
The tears were there, waiting to make their escape. But she wouldn’t let them. Not this time. She couldn’t. Because if there was one thing she had to do now, it was be strong and brave. She just had to be strong and brave for one week. That was no time at all. And when the week was over and Milo had found his true mate, she would disappear.
— Elaine  White, The Alpha and the Oracle
Every life contains a novel.
— Elin Hilderbrand, The Rumor
Love is always about losing something
— Camila Cher Harmath, Till We Rise
What happened is the least of it. It’s a novel, and once you’ve finished a novel, what happened in it is of little importance and soon forgotten. What matter are the possibilities and ideas that the novelist’s imaginary plot communicates to us and infuses us with, a plot that we recall far more vividly than real events and to which we pay far more attention.
— Javier Marías, Los enamoramientos
The virtuous are among the the weakest and quickest to sin
— Aziz Hamza, Eterlimus
when you walk the path of revenge, know that someone will always follow your trail
— Aziz Hamza, Eterlimus
If the gods chose Sextus as King of Rome, the worst possible evil will befall it
— Aziz Hamza, Eterlimus
Discourses, which are mostly wrapped in spurious religious and patriotic ideologies that ignite the enthusiasm of the ignorant masses
— Aziz Hamza, Eterlimus
Try everything
—  listen to everyone. Follow no one. You are your own story guru!
With the right tools, you can write anything ...
— Jeff Lyons, Anatomy of a Premise Line: How to Master Premise and Story Development for Writing Success
The threat of war hung on the air like a thick fog and it blinded him until he could see nothing beyond the haze. Even the stars grew faint.
— Brian A. McBride, Dominion
When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.
— William  Boyd, A Good Man in Africa
It was late morning when he woke and found the telephone beside his bed in the hotel tolling frantically, and remembered that he had left word to be called at eleven. Sloane was snoring heavily, his clothes in a pile by his bed. They dressed and ate breakfast in silence, and then sauntered out to get some air. Amory's mind was working slowly, trying to assimilate what had happened and separate from the chaotic imagery that stacked his memory the bare shreds of truth. If the morning had been cold and gray he could have grasped the reins of the past in an instant, but it was one of those days that New York gets sometimes in May, when the air of Fifth Avenue is a soft, light wine. How much or how little Sloane remembered Amory did not care to know; he apparently had none of the nervous tension that was gripping Amory and forcing his mind back and forth like a shrieking saw.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
The woman you thought you talked to was like one out of my novels, nothing more than a dream, and illusion I conjured to feel better. That’s all I ever will be, unable to be that woman in real life.
— Nicole Kiefer, Waiting in the Wings
Write what you want to write and would like to read, not for any invisible audience. Your readers will find you.
— David John Griffin, Two Dogs At The One Dog Inn
Every novel has at least three stories. Of course, there’s story in its pages. But then there’s the story of its writing. And there’s also the story of its reaching, or not reaching, the bigger world of its readers.
— Ian R. MacLeod, The Summer Isles
If I had followed every urge I ever had, I would have had much more sex and killed a lot more people
— Tommy Cotton, Just Went Out for Milk
The novel is born not of the theoretical spirit but of the spirit of humor.
— Milan Kundera, The Art of the Novel
I went on steadily trying to 'find out how to'; but I wrote two or three novels without feeling that I had made much progress. It was not until I wrote "Ethan Frome" that I suddenly felt the artisan's full control of his implements. When "Ethan Frome" first appeared I was severely criticized by the reviewers for what was considered the clumsy structure of the tale. I had pondered long on this structure, had felt its peculiar difficulties, and possible awkwardness, but could think of no alternative which would serve as well in the given case: and though I am far from thinking "Ethan Frome" my best novel, and am bored and even exasperated when I am told that it is, I am still sure that its structure is not its weak point.
— Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance
Ironically, in life, you sacrifice everything you love in the name of love"~ the motto of the romance novel Cupcakes and Cologne.
— Doina Moulin
Every artist was first an amateur.
Long novels written today are perhaps a contradiction: the dimension of time has been shattered, we cannot love or think except in fragments of time each of which goes off along its own trajectory and immediately disappears.
— Italo Calvino
He cannot recall just when that initial feeling of oneness faded, subordinated to the everyday activities of daily living. He is disappointed to realize he can no longer expect to find her up and awaiting his return. Discard 2
— Lois Charles
I don’t want what we’re doing to just end up as notes for a novel.
— Ben Lerner, 10:04
Now call your old lady and tell her to come out here. Go ahead and don't try no funny stuff.
— Lois Charles
Publishers, readers, booksellers, even critics, acclaim the novel that one can deliciously sink into, forget oneself in, the novel that returns us to the innocence of childhood or the dream of the cartoon, the novel of a thousand confections and no unwanted significance. What becomes harder to find, and lonelier to defend, is the idea of the novel as—in Ford Madox Ford’s words—a “medium of profoundly serious investigation into the human case.
— James Wood
In the city, human beings celebrated and enjoyed material conditions and comforts, but were caught in the labyrinths and knots of spiritual shallowness and psychological confusion. In the city human beings wrestled with the demands of survival and profit but fled from life’s imperatives of honesty and moderation. In the city man was afraid to confront his own face.
— Isa Kamari, The Tower
Pak Suleh recalled the atmosphere on his island of Pulau Sebidang, which had been ruled by his ancestors for more than a hundred years. Now it had been passed to foreign hands—whichever nation from whatever foreign world which had been claiming the island was theirs—such that he and his ancestors who had lived on that island for generation after generation had been chased away to live in these birdhouses. They had now inherited these congested breathing diseases.Why was it that he could no longer enjoy the wind which blows from the sea, which is very much one of God’s incomparable benevolences? He could no longer savour the swaying coconut trees, ketapang trees, beringin trees and other trees which whistled and murmured when caressed by the winds as their dried leaves fell onto the sand, mixed with red and white flowers scattered all over the pristine white beach, resembling the moving clouds on a wide piece of white paper.I have lost everything, thought Pak Suleh deep in his heart.
— Suratman Markasan, Penghulu
It is a strange thing, looking at the sea. When it is calm, or with only gentle ripples, it gives an impression of being soft and kind. But often, on such a calm, the wind suddenly blows, thrusting the water back into angry waves. At such times, in a certain sense, one feels sorry for the sea. Never of itself offensive to others, it is all too often attacked by wind and rain, the rain falling densely upon it, shaming the beauty of its calm face with a million bouncing bubbles. Were the wind to stop blowing, the ocean, surely, would never afflict the land with any calamity, nor would any human beings suffer.
— Tan Kok Seng, Son Of Singapore
But seriously Holden, what is the island called now?”“Sentosa,” Holden said romantically and with a flourish of his unoccupied left hand.“Sentosa. Sounds romantic all right. So this is the progress you’re talking about?
— Robert Yeo, The Adventures of Holden Heng
Oh, readers. If only you knew what we've gone through for you.
— Harry Olsen
The masks. that men have as faces, the outward shells they hold up for others to see while their minds shift in hidden directions" Discard 2
— Lois Charles
The masks. that men have as faces, the outward shells they hold up for others to see while their minds shift in hidden directions." Discard 2
— Lois Charles
The problem with living so long is that you see too many people pass before you.
— Lisa See, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
And he always checks that he carries three things with him: faith, hope, and love.
— Paulo Coelho, Warrior of the Light
Since the moment when, at the sight of his beloved and dying brother, Levin for the first time looked at the questions of life and death in the light of the new convictions, as he called them, which between the ages of twenty and thirty-four had imperceptibly replaced the beliefs of his childhood and youth, he had been less horrified by death than by life without the least knowledge of whence it came, what it is for, why, and what it is, Organisms, their destruction, the indestructibility of matter, the law of the conservation of energy, development—the terms that had superseded these beliefs—were very useful for mental purposes; but they gave no guidance for life, and Levin suddenly felt like a person who has exchanged a thick fur coat for a muslin garment and who, being out in the frost for the first time, becomes clearly convinced, not by arguments, but with the whole of his being, that he is as good as naked and that he must inevitably perish miserably.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
The masks. that men have as faces, the outward shells they hold up for others to see while their minds shift in hidden directions. Discard 2
— Lois  Charles, Discard 2
I thought it was a novel.”“It is.”“What’s it about??”“You’ll have to buy it to find out, but it’s got everything: love, death and an amusing dog.”“This one’s got a recipe for apple crumble,” I said.“Don’t you love that about the novel? The capaciousness?” he said.
— Marcel Theroux
Underneath the groundyou can't hear a soundnot even the sweet falling rainyou might forget about tomorrowforget about the swallowsbut they won't forget youthey won't forget you
— Karl P.T. Walsh, The Rat King
Among the people to whom he belonged, nothing was written or talked about at that time except the Serbian war. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time, it now did for the benefit of the Slavs: balls, concerts, dinners, speeches, ladies' dresses, beer, restaurants—all bore witness to our sympathy with the Slavs.With much that was spoken and written on the subject Konyshev did not agree in detail. He saw that the Slav question had become one of those fashionable diversions which, ever succeeding one another, serve to occupy Society; he saw that too many people took up the question from interested motives. He admitted that the papers published much that was unnecessary and exaggerated with the sole aim of drawing attention to themselves, each outcrying the other. He saw that amid this general elation in Society those who were unsuccessful or discontented leapt to the front and shouted louder than anyone else: Commanders-in-Chief without armies, Ministers without portfolios, journalists without papers, and party leaders without followers. He saw that there was much that was frivolous and ridiculous; but he also saw and admitted the unquestionable and ever-growing enthusiasm which was uniting all classes of society, and with which one could not help sympathizing. The massacre of our coreligionists and brother Slavs evoked sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against their oppressors. And the heroism of the Serbs and Montenegrins, fighting for a great cause, aroused in the whole nation a desire to help their brothers not only with words but by deeds.Also there was an accompanying fact that pleased Koznyshev. It was the manifestation of public opinion. The nation had definitely expressed its wishes. As Koznyshev put it, ' the soul of the nation had become articulate.' The more he went into this question, the clearer it seemed to him that it was a matter which would attain enormous proportions and become epoch-making.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
It’s always nice to learn a thing or two from a novel, don’t you think?
— Zia Haider Rahman, In the Light of What We Know
... novels contained something inexpressibly delicious.
— Marcel Proust, Swann's Way
I also need to prepare myself for the inevitability of utter boredom: Very often, single people don't do shit. They do nothing, all night long. They sit in a recliner and watch TV. I've probably watched more television than anyone you've ever met, and I don't even own one. Terrible shows, good shows, Golf tournaments in Cancun. C-SPAN. Hours of Oprah. Law and Order. Lonely people love Law and Order, for whatever reason. They prefer the straight narratives. p60
— Chuck Klosterman, The Visible Man
Alive, and one. We are one, and while we love, death will never touch us. 'The grave's a fine and private place/ but none, I think, do there embrace.
— Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber
I don’t know why I told you all those things, but I did. Maybe it was because I’m a drunk, and sometimes drunks like to confess.
— Steven Ramirez Dead Is All You Get
Strange looks everything for a stranger!
— Nathan Haddish Mogos, Mottaket
Vronsky meanwhile, in spite of the complete fulfilment of what he had so long desired, was not completely happy. He soon felt that the realization of his longing gave him only one grain of the mountain of bliss he had anticipated. That realization showed him the eternal error men make by imagining that happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes. When first he united his life with hers and donned civilian clothes, he felt the delight of freedom in general, such as he had not before known, and also the freedom of love—he was contented then, but not for long. Soon he felt rising in his soul a desire for desires—boredom. Involuntarily he began to snatch at every passing caprice, mistaking it for a desire and a purpose.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Although they are often called cabarets, and occasionally there is even strip-dancing involved, you shouldn't associate them with merrymaking or extravaganza...
— Lola Smirnova, Twisted
Love is something that is beyond us. We can't anticipate love. When, where and with whom we fall in love is coincidental and wonderful for the same reason.
— Santonu Kumar Dhar, Life of Love
Life is God's Novel. Let Him write it. -Isaac Bashevis Singer
— -Isaac Bashevis Singer
Life is full of beautiful moments. Live your life to the fullest. And do what youlove.
— Santonu Kumar Dhar, Life of Love
Redwing had read somewhere that one of his favourite writers, Ernest Hemingway, had been asked what was the best training for a novelist. He had said “an unhappy childhood.” Redwing had enjoyed a fine time growing up, but he wondered if this whole expedition was unfolding more like a novel, and would be blamed on one person, one character, the guy in charge: him. Maybe you got a happy childhood and then an unhappy adulthood, and that’s how novels worked.
— Gregory Benford, Shipstar
Experiment is the sole source of truth. It alone can teach us something new
—  it alone can give us certainty.
Personality is a piece of paper that folds in to conceal different sides and display others, like an Origami
— Alejandro Colliard, The Sun, Sex, Blood and Time
It's more like how some people can't help but bring out the not necessarily righteous parts of your personality. Like how you meet someone and instantly know they're a full-time professional victim, and no matter how hard you try, something takes over and you can't help needling them.
— Richard Kadrey, Aloha from Hell
Perhaps the whole of life is a continuousinterconnecting of miracle,but we don't always realise it.
— Paul Morris Segal, Raising Angels
Lyra marveled at the effect hope could have.
— Philip Pullman
she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.
— Philip Pullman
If a novelist were so uncouth and possessed of so little moral sense that he should write of illicit love, his book would be barred from the public libraries and he woukd be ostracized by society.
— Clyde Brion Davis, The Great American Novel
Had Zach just apologised for kissing her? She didn’t know whether to cry or slap his face. ~Maddie
— Monique DeVere, Zach's Rebound Girl
In my end lies my beginning" Who said that? Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1542-1587).
— Danny Saunders
A novelist's job is almost to be a stupid as possible, except in the cunning moment when you need to structure something, when you need to be very intelligent indeed. The rest of the time, you need almost an empty mind, where you can let any image in, follow it along, and allow an emotional charge, almost the way actors and singers can work. The more instinct you have as a novelist, and the less intelligence, the better.
— Colm Tóibín
Part of what I love about novels and dogs is that they are so beautifully oblivious to economic concerns. We serve them, and in return they thrive. It's not their responsibility to figure out where the rent is coming from.
— Ann Patchett, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage
When you care for someone, you don't ruin their life!
— Gaelen Foley
His mind is like that. On the inside, where he never smiles.
— Stephen King, Joyland
I think politics is deadly to write about, frankly. If you have a political agenda and you set out to write a novel to prove that, say, capitalism should crumble, then it's going to be a really bad novel. Very few people have been able to deal with political fiction - Dickens, Dostoyevsky. But even Tolstoy got really tiresome when he was talking about the serfs. You have to let characters be characters, not [gruff voice] Mr Capitalism or [girlie voice] Miss Anti-Fur.
— Donna Tartt
Ladies sheltering behind men, men sheltering behind servants - the whole system's wrong, and she must challenge it.
— E.M. Forster, Howards End
Taken together the Internet reads like the grandest character-driven novel humanity has ever known. Not much plot though.
— Victor LaValle
Many of us can't go home again, whether home is Seville, Cabo Sur, Nastas, Havana, or Kansas City. Thus, we must recognize that home really lies in the eternal peace, dormant or conscious, that dwells in each human heart... Quote from "Ms. Quixote Goes Country", a truthful novel.
— LEVega
Socrates is flying. No, he is soaring. The wings behind him beat in a calming rhythm while the cool air rushes past. His wings are all that matter, snapping at the rushing wind like the sails of some great sea vessel, the feathery appendages all he is and all he will ever want to be.His back muscles flex with the effort that takes him high above the ground. He feels the effort, of course, but sweeping into the sky does not require much of one. The sensation is pleasurable, even exhilarating. With flight there is freedom beyond description, an ecstasy bordering on sexual.He has only one destination, and that is to soar higher, to no longer be a prisoner of the earth. Here destinations seem irrelevant, the world below small. Flying exceeds every pleasure he knows. In the immense forever of blue sky, all that matters is flight and his ability to climb higher.Up and up and up...
— Kenneth C. Goldman, Of A Feather
Writing a novel is easy… writing checks is hard.
— Michael J. Kannengieser, The Daddy Rock
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one in my novel COPYRIGHT. I also play a serial rapist, a drug addict, a teenage boy and lesbian model.
— Lori Lesko
I like to think that when I complete a novel I learned something along the way.
— Michael J. Kannengieser, The Daddy Rock
Don’t be offended if you encounter some good-natured ribbing
—  the idea ofwriting a novel in a month deserves to be laughed at.
The world is always full of the sound of waves.The little fishes, abandoning themselves to the waves, dance and sing, and play, but who knows the heart of the sea, a hundred feet down? Who knows it depth?
— Eiji Yoshikawa, Musashi
It takes skill to win a battle, but brains to win a war.
— Amy I. Long, The Untold Legend: The Warrior Queen
To live is to walk beside Death but never join hands. ~ Captain Buck "Slackeye" Roberts
— Kai McCarthy
Writing is the only way to run away from home, without ever leaving.
— Shannon L. Alder
Escaping Reality One Erotic Romance Novel At a Time.
— S.K. Logsdon
Shit, man, if you see a dog scratching at the dirt trying to dig something up, walk away real fast,” he said, then pulled a little square of paper from his pocket and swallowed whatever was folded inside.
— Cole Alpaugh, The Spy's Little Zonbi
The two smallest boys were cut down first, bodies bounding in different directions as they were shot from opposite sides of the field, like pinballs caught in a tight corner.
— Cole Alpaugh, The Spy's Little Zonbi
If professional religious leaders cannot instruct us in mythological lore, our artists and creative writers can perhaps step into this priestly role and bring fresh insight to our lost and damaged role.
— Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth
To read a novel is to wonder constantly, even at moments when we lose ourselves most deeply in the book: How much of this is fantasy, and how much is real?
— Orhan Pamuk, The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist
The warmth of our bodies began to melt my frozen heart bit by bit.
— Kirito
Her friend glanced between Cait and Dante.“But Cait, The Hulk has requested my absence. I believe it best if I cooperate.
— Abby Niles, Extreme Love
Ninety percent of my work is crap,” he continued. “Another nine percent is mediocre, and then there are those rare gems that are actually useable.
— Olivia Cunning, Tie Me
When you write a movie, you have a hundred collaborators. But when you write a novel, it's yours.
— Sidney Sheldon
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.
— Kristen Ashley, Golden Trail
Adolescence is like a heavy rain. Even though you catch a cold from it, you still look forward to experiencing it once again.(From 'In Those Bygone Years, The Girl We All Went After' the novel)
— 九把刀
Now, my novel begins. No, now I begin my novel—and yet I cannot decide whether to call myself I or she.
— Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights
She didn’t think that by hanging a chandelier from the ceiling you made a room with a chandelier. She felt you’d made another world, which you could slip in and out of by some vague process of application
— Guy Mankowski, Letters From Yelena
Samuel walked out to Lindsey then, and there she was in his arms, my sweet butterball babe, born ten years after my fourteen years on Earth: Abigail Suzanne. Little Susie to me. Samuel placed Susie on a blanket near the flowers. And my sister, my Lindsey, left me in her memories, where I was meant to be.
— Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
Writing a novel is like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle whose pieces aren't even fixed in shape. Yet, somehow, they all come together in the end to form the complete picture.
— Jyoti Arora, Dream's Sake
I am a dash man and not a miler, and it is probable that I will never write a novel. So far the novels of this war have had too much of the strength, maturity and craftsmanship critics are looking for, and too little of the glorious imperfections which teeter and fall off the best minds. The men who have been in this war deserve some sort of trembling melody rendered without embarrassment or regret. I’ll watch for that book.
— J.D. Salinger
Writing a novel is like traveling the universe on foot.
— Dennis R. Miller
-I think you are inhuman. If I leave you, who will you go to? Would you find another lover?I said nothing.-Deny it,damn you!
— Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
A novel is just a story that hasn't yet discovered a way to be brief.
— George Saunders
I went mad before he did, you killed everything in me. Kiss me,will you. Stop defending yourself.
— Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
Quote from "A la bulgaro":"So long time has passed since those days, and since that story, which is still vivid in my memory, and even more vivid than all the rest. Some times I stay alone in my work - room here, in my father's old mansion in Pasadena, and I look through the old, yellow pages again and again. Then I go back to the north part which is furnished in my style, with many colored Bulgarian carpets and blankets (special kind of Bulgarian blankets with long fur), I make my coffee in a cooper coffee - pot, which has been brought from there, and my thoughts wonder to those absurd memories of mine...Very often some friends ask me - what is that unusual memories of yours? I can't explain to them, better say I don't want to, and I always avoid the answer by saying - a la Bulgaro - in a Bulgarian way..."Oh, yes, yes"...
— Alexandar Tomov
Half asleep, he wondered whether that might not have been his happiest day ever, the last, perfect day swelling with the immensity of his secret intent, secret creation—the day before everything changed—the day before he realized, for the first time, yet with absolute finality, just how small his private immensity really was when measured against that other vast, dark, impersonal immensity, call it God, or history, or simply life.
— Olga Grushin, The Line