author's style Quotes

I am not a political writer. I agree with Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, who are social writers. I can't write in that fashion. I am not good enough for that. What I am interested in is family dramas and why we are doing bad things to each other and what our motives are.

To my mind, Death in Venice represents an enormous advance in Mann's literary development, not simply for the commonly appreciated reason that he crafted a superbly supple and elegant style, apparently well suited to the kind of prose Aschenbach is supposed to write.

Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

If you want to study writing, read Dickens

Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counselling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, 'How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?' and avoid 'How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?'

All of my characters have a glint of madness.

All writers have their own pet commandments.

It is time to return to close reading, to a serious and painstaking examination of an author's methods, of his style. Do not be deterred by headaches. First of all, this would be proof of your lack of stamina. And then, migraines, piercing pain and sudden stabs at the temples are more likely the effects of syphilis than of hard work.

I think I made a mistake with [Jane] Austen by reading all six in a row. There are similarities to the plots so by the time I got to the last one I could anticipate what was happening too easily. But her characterizations are amazing.

As a friend once pointed out, the crotchety dowagers do tend to get all the best lines. That may be why I have so many of them in my books.

Each book will have a lot of cliffhangers, because I like that.

I know a lot of people who read and think: "George [Saunders] is so much fun." There's no denying you're fun to read, but as a writer I think of [George Saunders] as, in fact, not a fun and freewheeling type but really an obsessive control artist.

James Baldwin had an unrivaled understanding of politics and history and, above all, the human condition. His prose is laser sharp. His onslaught is massive and leaves no room for response. Every sentence is an immediate cocked grenade. You pick it up, then realize that it is too late. It just blows up in your face. And yet he still managed to stay human, tender, accessible.

Style is made up of whatever an author can't avoid doing.

The trouble is when people read about authors, they don't feel compelled to read the authors' work.

I could never write about strange kingdoms. I could never do 'Harry Potter' or anything like that. Even when I did science-fiction, I didn't write about foreign planets and distant futures. I certainly never did fantasies about trolls living under bridges.

You go back to look over the body of my work, and there are no archetypal villains in my books.

Nice characters are boring! I like writing upbeat characters - that's my natural tendency.

I guess I am conscious of my weaknesses, and I think pacing is probably my biggest. I don't know if I think the clarity thing is actually a weakness. It was a stylistic choice.

A man of letters, merely by reading a phrase, can estimate exactly the literary merit of its author.

I think my books come out very visual, which is an obvious consequence.

John Updike: our greatest suburban chic-boutique man of letters. A smug and fatal complacency has stunted his growth beyond hope of surgical repair. Not enough passion in his collected works to generate steam in a beer can. Nevertheless, he is considered by some critics to be America's finest *living* author: Hold a chilled mirror to his lips and you will see, presently, a fine and dewy moisture condensing -- like a faery breath! -- upon the glass.

Johnston's books are beautifully written and among the funniest I have ever read.

Ben Bova seems to work very hard at working in new discoveries into his Glum Future but alas, his future is glum and not that well written.

Most of my books have always worked through juxtaposition, jumping through different point of views and time.