“The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.”

— Michael Ondaatje, book In the Skin of a Lion

Source: In the Skin of a Lion

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Michael Ondaatje44

Canadian writer 1943

William Zinsser (1922–2015) writer, editor, journalist, literary critic, professor

Source: On Writing Well (Fifth Edition, orig. pub. 1976), Chapter 2, Simplicity, p. 12.

“You have been with me from the very first life. You are my first memory every time, the single thread in all of my lives. It`s you who makes me a person.”

Ann Brashares book My Name is Memory

Source: My Name Is Memory

“I begin with writing the first
sentence—and trusting to Almighty
God for the second.”

Laurence Sterne book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Source: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

“Moral philosophy is very largely a branch of fiction. Despite this, a philosopher has yet to write a great novel. The fact should not be surprising. In philosophy the truth about human life is of no interest.”

John Gray book Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

The Vices of Morality: Immoral Amorality (p. 109)
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002)

“The sentences of foreign Courts have always some degree of regard paid to them by the Courts of justice here: and it is very right that an attention should be paid to them, as far as they ought to have weight in the case depending.”

John Eardley Wilmot (1709–1792) English judge

Robinson v. Bland (1760), 2 Burr. Part IV. 1084.

“Painters should remember that the eye, as a general rule, is a good, simple, credulous organ — very ready to take things on trust if it be told them with any confidence of assertion.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

The Credulous Eye
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part IX - A Painter's Views on Painting

“I have huge respect for short stories—I just find them much harder to get right than a novel. A novel is a lot baggier and it gives you more leeway to go on for too long or to make mistakes. Whereas in a short story, every sentence, every word, matters—and that’s very hard. I think it’s easier to write too much than it is to write exactly the right thing.”

Tracy Chevalier (1962) American writer

On how she compares short story writing to novel writing in “An Interview with Tracy Chevalier” https://fictionwritersreview.com/interview/an-interview-with-tracy-chevalier/ in Fiction Writers Review (2019 Sep 23)

“If Congress alters the law and directs me to replace on the coins the sentence in question the direction will be immediately put into effect; but I very earnestly trust that the religious sentiment of the country, the sprit of reverence in this country, will prevent any such action being taken.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, "In God we Trust" letter (1907)

“There are men in Spain who need me, who trust me. They're not special men, they wouldn't look very well in Carlton House, but they are fighting for all of you. That's why I'm here.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Major Richard Sharpe, p. 53
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Regiment (1986)

“Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

“The first sentence of every novel should be: Trust me, this will take time but there is order here, very faint, very human.”

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