Natalie Prass Quotes

I would love to write something that people would still read 50 or 100 years from now. That comes with growing older, I think.

You can't possibly predict what will last or not. But once you attempt to write for the ages, you're doomed.

Things may not be immediately discernible in what a man writes, and in this sometimes he is fortunate; but eventually they are quite clear, and by these and the degree of alchemy that he possesses, he will endure or be forgotten.

A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again.

I attempt to write a good novel. Whether it is literature or not is something that will be decided by the ages, not by me and not by a pack of critics around the globe.

Every writer secretly hopes that what he or she has written will endure.

I definitely don't aspire to writing that's 'timeless,' whatever that means.

The test of a writer is whether you want to read him again years after he should by the rules be dated.

I've achieved what every artist wants, which is that some of their work will outlive them.

An author departs, he does not die.

I want to make music that stands the test of time.

The light that radiates from the great novels time can never dim, for human existence is perpetually being forgotten by man and thus the novelists' discoveries, however old they may be, will never cease to astonish.

It's what all writers dream of, that our work finds a measure of immortality that long outlives the words of any critic.

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.

Dickens writes such brilliant characters and stories, and his themes and social commentary are still so relevant. I think that's why he's still so loved today.

There comes a point when you can more or less count the number of books you're going to write before you die.

I truly believe the art's larger than the artist. Who cares about John Steinbeck? I care about the Joad family.

The beauty of doing film is that you construct whatever you do block by block and you can build something that will stay.

When you're writing a book, you don't want it to be overly trendy because you want people to enjoy it for years and refer back to it.

As any student of literature knows, the books that last are often not the books that are most popular when they are written. Both 'Moby Dick' and 'The Great Gatsby' were complete failures, critically and commercially, when they first appeared.

I think that's what really a substantial work is, it's forever. It's the truth now and it was the truth then, and it will be the truth tomorrow.

There's one good kind of writer - a dead one.

When I'm dead, I wanna leave a body of work, like authors or great painters do.

Real novelists, those we admire, those we consider timeless in their language and character and scene, those who receive accolades for inventive language and form, have writing lives we imagine in specific ways.

My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last for ever.