Garth Risk Hallberg Quotes

I wanted to see if I could write a good book.

I don't think I have a very novelistic brain. I like to read, but I don't know if I could ever write a novel.

I'm the first to admit that I can't be as good as Tolkien, and a movie can never be as good as Tolkien.

I asked a French critic a couple of years ago why my books did so well in France. He said it was because in my novels people both act and think. I got a kick out of that.

I love to read. And right now I'm on my last hundred pages of 'The Corrections' by Jonathan Franzen, and I really enjoyed it. His writing is just - he's one of those writers where you just go, 'There are people just meant to be novel writers.'

I used to get criticized for putting food in novels.

My first two novels were set in the past, and that freed me up in a lot of ways; it allowed me to find my way into my story and my characters through research.

I think it took me half a page of 'Wolf Hall' to think: 'This is the novel I should have been writing all along.'

When I read 'Greenberg,' I had a really strong sense if I could be any kind of writer I wanted to be, I'd be this kind of writer. And I felt like, even in my experiences, what writing I had done, even on a small scale, when it was good, it shared some quality with it.

I actually admire some of the books by a lot of the writers who write magic realism very much, but it's not for me. It's not what I can do, but even if I could, I don't really want to try.

It's really hard to be a story writer - no matter how much acclaim you get - and not write a novel.

When I read interviews with people like Kevin Barry or Colin Barrett, who I hugely admire, they don't really seem to come up against the question of likeability even though their characters, in some instances, are really horrible.

In order to be a living, breathing thing, a novel has to be failed in some kind of way. Or at least that's how I keep writing them.

A lot of journalists are talented enough to write a mystery novel, and I would say that most of the top-end mystery writers actually started out as reporters. But there is more to it than just the writing; there's a learning process, and most journalists aren't willing to do it.

The novelist's obsession, moment by moment, is with language: finding the right next word.

Usually, when I write a novel, it takes me about 100 pages to figure out the voice of the narrator.

As much as I really like the screenwriting thing, the novel is where the author has so much control.

Sarah Phelps is such an incredibly detailed writer. She's famous for bringing literature to life, like Dickens and Agatha Christie.

Just as readers often turn into writers, novel-writers often become novel-reviewers.

People never read my books for the quality of the documentary value.

People have told me that the dialogue in '100 Bullets' is very realistic. I don't agree.

I'm drawn to writers with skill sets I don't have.

I want to write books.

Novelists do not swing on the same pendulums as critics.

Every writer should be able to write anything if you do the research and you're sensitive enough to ask the questions.