Ethan Canin Quotes

A novel, at least for me, cannot be visualized at one time.

Ethan Canin

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Quotes to Explore

• We never had books at home, but my dad, seeing how keen I was to read, took me to Islington Library when I was about eight and we pulled out two - a Biggles and a science fiction novel. I never got the ace fighter pilot but fell in love with all things to do with the future and space. Isaac Asimov soon became my guiding star.

  

  Gary Kemp Spandau Ballet
  • Home
  • Future
  • Space

• I don't have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again.

  

  Flannery O'Connor
  • Know
  • Say
  • Old

• I love bookstores and booksellers. In my novel 'Dirty Martini,' I thanked over 3,000 booksellers by name in the back matter.

  

  J. A. Konrath
  • Love
  • Novel
  • Thanked

• If 10 years from now, when you are doing something quick and dirty, you suddenly visualize that I am looking over your shoulders and say to yourself: 'Dijkstra would not have liked this', well that would be enough immortality for me.

  

  Edsger Dijkstra
  • Dirty
  • Immortality
  • Quick

• The novel is a seduction; a reader has to be seduced.

  

  T. C. Boyle
  • Novel
  • Seduction
  • Seduced

• In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.

  

  E. O. Wilson
  • Write
  • Novel
  • Southern

• I visualize things in my mind before I have to do them. It's like having a mental workshop.

  

  Jack Youngblood
  • Mind
  • Imagination
  • Visualize

• Writing a first novel was an arduous crash course. I learned so much in the six years it took me to write it, mostly technical things pertaining to craft.

  

  Rachel Kushner
  • Things
  • Write
  • Novel

• I could not bear to think that I wrote a five-hundred page novel just because I needed to love my father.

  

  Pat Conroy
  • Think
  • Father
  • Novel

• Maybe some people, when they sit down to write their great novel or make their great record or paint their great painting, they have it all planned out in their head. But for me, it's never worked that way.

  

  Mike D The Beastie Boys
  • People
  • Record
  • Novel

• The strange thing about writing is that it's so easy to write a novel. It is really easy. But it's getting there to the point where it's easy that's hard. The hard part is to get there.

  

  Karl Ove Knausgard
  • Writing
  • Strange
  • Point

• Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.

  

  Flannery O'Connor
  • Free
  • Freedom
  • Integrity

• When I write a novel, every word is mine. I welcome suggestions from my editor, but in the end, I make all the final decisions.

  

  Louis Sachar
  • Writing
  • Decision
  • Novel

• When starting to think about any novel, part of the motive is: I'm going to show them, this time.

  

  Kingsley Amis
  • Time
  • Show
  • Novel

• In every first novel the hero is the author as Christ or Faust.

  

  Oscar Wilde
  • Hero
  • Christ
  • Author

• I certainly wake up every morning and thank God that I'm not a novelist because the theater is tough, but novel writing is infinitely harder. Especially with the economics of serious fiction being what they are in America.

  

  Tony Kushner
  • Up
  • God
  • Writing

• Before I studied story, I was trying to write a novel, and it was terrible. It wasn't going anywhere, and I couldn't figure out what I was trying to do. It was really hard; much harder than I thought it was going to be. Now that I've studied story, I think I'd have a different approach and maybe I could actually get it done.

  

  Donald Miller
  • Different
  • Trying
  • Done

• We read five words on the first page of a really good novel and we begin to forget that we are reading printed words on a page; we begin to see images.

  

  John Gardner
  • Reading
  • Forget
  • Novel

• They say don't believe your own hype, but if you don't why would anyone else? To be great you have to believe you can do great things.

  

  Charley Johnson
  • Great
  • Believe
  • To Be

• Peter glanced up at the stars and a wicked smile lit his face. "Time to play," he whispered to the stars and winked. And the stars winked back, for Peter's smile is a most contagious thing.

  

  Brom
  • Smile
  • Stars
  • Whispered

• As the popularity of science-fiction increases, so inevitably does the volume of clownish imprecation against it.

  

  Edmund Crispin
  • Popularity
  • Volume
  • Science fiction

• A novel, at least for me, cannot be visualized at one time.

  

  Ethan Canin
  • Novel
  • Visualize