Famous quotes by Novelists

"I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults"

Gore Vidal, Novelist

"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests"

Gore Vidal, Novelist

"The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar, familiar things new"

William Makepeace Thackeray, Novelist

"The book of female logic is blotted all over with tears, and Justice in their courts is forever in a passion"

William Makepeace Thackeray, Novelist

"The sky was clear - remarkably clear - and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse"

Thomas Hardy, Novelist

"The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible"

Thomas Hardy, Novelist

"The main object of religion is not to get a man into heaven, but to get heaven into him"

Thomas Hardy, Novelist

"Poetry is emotion put into measure. The emotion must come by nature, but the measure can be acquired by art"

Thomas Hardy, Novelist

"Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons"

Thomas Hardy, Novelist

"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia"

Margaret Atwood, Novelist

"We can't take any credit for our talents. It's how we use them that counts"

Madeleine L'Engle, Novelist

"For years I wanted to be older, and now I am"

Margaret Atwood, Novelist

"In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt"

Margaret Atwood, Novelist

"I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one 'race' - the human race - and that we are all members of it"

Margaret Atwood, Novelist

"The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been"

Madeleine L'Engle, Novelist

"Because you're not what I would have you be, I blind myself to who, in truth, you are"

Madeleine L'Engle, Novelist

"This above all: to refuse to be a victim"

Margaret Atwood, Novelist

"The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose"

Margaret Atwood, Novelist

"When God hands you a gift, he also hands you a whip; and the whip is intended for self-flagellation solely"

Truman Capote, Novelist

"Fame is only good for one thing - they will cash your check in a small town"

Truman Capote, Novelist

"Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor"

Truman Capote, Novelist

"One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving"

Paulo Coelho, Novelist

"Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act"

Paulo Coelho, Novelist

"If you start by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work towards getting it"

Paulo Coelho, Novelist

"When you say things like, 'We have to wipe out the Taliban,' what does that mean? The Taliban is not a fixed number of people. The Taliban is an ideology that has sprung out of a history that, you know, America created anyway"

Arundhati Roy, Novelist

"Sometimes I think the world is divided into those who have a comfortable relationship with power and those who have a naturally adversarial relationship with power"

Arundhati Roy, Novelist

"If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody"

J.D. Salinger, Novelist

"I don't even like old cars. I'd rather have a goddam horse. A horse is at least human, for God's sake"

J.D. Salinger, Novelist

"How do you know you're going to do something, untill you do it?"

J.D. Salinger, Novelist

"You take somebody that cries their goddam eyes out over phoney stuff in the movies, and nine times out of ten they're mean bastards at heart"

J.D. Salinger, Novelist

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