Novelist Quotes

Civilization has imposed countless restrictions and conventions on each of us, with the result that the subconscious in the majority of us has become a storage room without a key. We are forced to suppress or forget so many events and ideas and thoughts that those to which we should have access are lost in the welter. However, there are people who seem capable of unlocking this part of their minds and extracting relevant information.

Margaret Millar

The sudden and abrupt removal of my all-consuming goal... well, it was like I was a donut, and somebody had sucked all the jelly out of me. But I could stuff new jelly in there. It would just get my hands a little sticky in the process.

Brandon Sanderson

Most courage comes from being too tired and hungry to be afraid anymore.

Ysabeau S. Wilce

For the first time, I had been struck by the excitement of the traveler who looks history in her subtle face.

Elizabeth Kostova

A man who so much resembled a Baked Alaska—sweet, warm and gungy on the outside, hard and cold within.

Of C. P. Snow

Three things Marco taught me today race through my mind: boys will lie to your face just to have sex with you, don't trust any boy who says I love you, and never date a boy who lives on the south side of Fairfield.

We are always the most violent against those whom we have injured.

Patrick O'Brian

Crises of expression and spasms of eros:
that's the man of today,
the inside a vacuum,
the continuity of personality
provided by his suit,
which with stout cloth might be good for ten years.

Since each child reads only about six hundred books in the course of childhood, each book should nourish them in some way — with new ideas, insight, humor, or vocabulary.

You didn't realize what was passing you by until you slowed down a little bit to get a better look.

Karin Slaughter

Rather like spent swimmers, who had given up the hope of rescue and then had suddenly met with it, they were sensing with all their being, the feel of the solid ground beneath their feet, the grateful monotony of the skies above their heads,... and everywhere about them the immanence of God.... The Chinaberry Tree became a Temple.

Jessie Redmon Fauset

Thomas reached out and took my hand, turned it palm up, and said, "I believe that's healing very nicely." Aunt Charlotte opened the door just as he turned my hand over again and brushed a kiss across my knuckles. I experienced a nearly overpowering desire to hit him in the eye.

Caroline Stevermer

You won't regret the men you never killed, but you will regret the women you passed up.

Bernard Cornwell

I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.

I mucked about with his hair. His shoes
were where he left them. His shoes are where he
left them.

Why would a man need both a wife and a mistress? A smart man would seek out and fall in love with a woman who can play both.

Love is patient. Love is kind. It bears all things. Love never fails. Love is as strong as death.

Doesn't matter what language you speak or what clothes you wear. Some things don't change. Families. Friends. Lovers. They're the same in every city in every country in every continent of the world.

Annabel Pitcher

If you deny mystery-even in the guise of death-then you deny life, and you will walk like a ghost through your days, never knowing the secrets of the extremes. The deep sorrows, the absolute joys.

Nothing can stop the questing of men, not even Man. If we will it, not only the wonders of space, but the very stars are ours.

Needing something is not the same thing as being interested in the thing itself.

Charles Baxter (author)

Dying men think of funny things-and that's what we all are here, aren't we? Dying men.

Hard, withering toil only can achieve a name; and long days and months and years must be passed in the chase of that bubble, reputation, which, when once grasped, breaks in your eager clutch into a hundred lesser bubbles, that soar above you still.

Donald Grant Mitchell

It's wonderful to feel desired. There's a sense of power in it, really.

I never like anyone till I've seen him at his worst.