“I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one.”

— James Clavell

Interview with Don Swaim (1986)
Context: I write short stories. They may appear big in size, but when you consider it, they're four or five novels in one. … In return for picking up one of my books, I'm trying to give them value for their money. … the goal of writing any book is to create the illusion that what you are reading is reality and you're part of it.

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James Clavell 55

American novelist 1921–1994

Steve Alten (1959) American writer

Interview with New HWA Member Steve Alten http://horror.org/interview-with-new-hwa-member-steve-alten-by-ron-breznay/ (December 7, 2011)

“A short story is a love affair, a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film.”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

“The problem of the novel is to stay truthful. The short story, if you really are intense and you have an exciting idea, writes itself in a few hours.”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

The Paris Review interview (2010)

“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)

“When you write a short story … you had better know the ending first.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

The Casebook of the Black Widowers (1980), p. 177
General sources
Context: When you write a short story... you had better know the ending first. The end of a story is only the end to the reader. To the writer, it's the beginning. If you don't know exactly where you're going every minute you're writing, you'll never get there — or anywhere.

“The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself.”

Caitlín R. Kiernan (1964) writer

(10 January 2005)
Unfit for Mass Consumption (blog entries), 2005
Context: The writing of a novel or short story or poem or whatever should elevate the audience, not drag the writer down to some level beneath herself. And she — the author — should fight always to prevent that dragging down, especially when the only possible benefit of allowing it to happen is monetary.