“All great novels, all true novels, are bisexual.”
Milan Kundera (1929–2023) Czech author of Czech and French literature
“People think because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Because a novel's invented, it is true. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they can't include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that. The novelist himself lays it down. His decision is binding.”
Hearing Secret Harmonies (1975), ch. 3.
A Dance to the Music of Time (1951-1975)
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Anthony Powell11
English novelist 1905–2000Related quotes
Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist
from the preface to Indro Montanelli e Marco Nozza, Garibaldi, BUR.
2000s - 2010s
“In a revolution, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.”
Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian
Recollections of Alexis de Tocqueville, p. 71 http://books.google.com/books?id=3gtoAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA71&dq=%22most+difficult+part+to+invent+is+the+end%22. <br class="br">1850s and later
John Green (1977) American author and vlogger
Hey, some people on tumblr are wondering if writers feel upset or get a thrill when they kill their characters. Care to enlighten us?, John Green's tumblr, Tumblr, January 1, 2013, July 15, 2014 http://fishingboatproceeds.tumblr.com/post/39363824562/hey-some-people-on-tumblr-are-wondering-if-writers,
Sidney Sheldon (1917–2007) American writer
Variant: Life is like a novel. It's filled with suspense. You have no idea what is going to happen until you turn the page.
Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer
Source: The Paris Review interview (1981), p. 338
J. G. Ballard book Crash
"Introduction" to the French edition (1974) of Crash (1973); reprinted in Re/Search no. 8/9 (1984)
Crash (1973)
Context: We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind — mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality.
“We can't behave like people in novels, though, can we?”
Edith Wharton The Age of Innocence
Source: The Age of Innocence
“I have learned a great deal from novels. Some of it is even true.”
Dean Koontz (1945) American author