First Novel Quotes

“In the past, the poverty they shared had a certain sweetness about it. When the end of the day came and they would eat their dinner in silence with the oil lamp between them, there was a secret joy in such simplicity, such retrenchment.”
― Albert Camus, A Happy Death

“I think there really is no other way to write a long, serious
novel. You work, shelve it for a while, work, shelve it again,
work some more, month after month, year after year, and then
one day you read the whole piece through and, so far as you
can see, there are no mistakes. (The minute it's published and
you read the printed book you see a thousand.) This tortuous
process is not necessary, I suspect, for the writing of a popular
novel in which the characters are not meant to have depth and complexity, where character A is consistently stingy and character
B is consistently openhearted and nobody is a mass of
contradictions, as are real human beings. But for a true novel
there is generally no substitute for slow, slow baking.
We've all heard the stories of Tolstoy's pains over Anna Karenina,
Jane Austen's over Emma, or even Dostoevsky's over Crime and Punishment, a novel he grieved at having to publish prematurely,though he had worked at it much longer than most popular-fiction writers work at their novels.”
― John Gardner, On Becoming a Novelist

“While I was in the research field in 1929, the idea of Jonah's Gourd Vine came to me. I had written a few short stories, but the idea of attempting a book seemed so big that I gazed at it in the quiet of the night, but hid it away from even myself in daylight.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road

“I suppose I also have a fondness for Cities because it was my first published novel - writing it got me over what had, up until that time, seemed like an insurmountable hurdle - the writing and completion of a novel. Oh, I'd begun several novels over the years, but never had the staying power or the faith in my own work to finish one.”
― Lucy Taylor

“Dusk Description, "the sun is trimming the rooftops and starting to unbutton the day".”
― Joanna Cannon

“Al finalizar, cada uno de los asistentes deja en la sepultura de Tom un ramo de flores, al igual que yo. ¿Por qué flores? Me comienzo a preguntar mientras camino de vuelta a la calle, tal vez sea por la razón de que nos recuerdan como es la vida: hermosa y a la vez efímera.”
― Max E. Nava, Historias de almas perdidas: Loreley

“I still remember typing the title page on my manual Smith-Corona with clammy hands and a racing heart. When I came to the words, "A novel by Joyce Elbert", I heard the New York Philharmonic break into Wagnerian praise for a major new literary voice, yet seconds later doubt and insecurity had crept in.”
― Joyce Elbert, A Tale of Five Cities & Other Memoirs