Adult Novel Quotes

[A young adult novel] ends not with happily ever after, but at a new beginning, with the sense of a lot of life yet to be lived. ~ Richard Peck

My ultimate authority would be the school librarian Mrs. Greenbacher. ~ Shawn Stewart Ruff

Great. My life has suddenly become a young-adult novel. ~ R.J. Gonzales

I move between the two: I write an adult novel, and then I write a children's book. I quite enjoy that. It's a nice change of pace each time. ~ John Boyne

In 1965, when I was fourteen, I read my first adult novel; it was a historical novel about Katherine of Aragon, and I could not put it down. When I finished it, I had to find out the true facts behind the story and if people really carried on like that in those days. So I began to read proper history books, and found that they did! ~ Alison Weir

With no music to listen to, I just biked around in circles talking to myself like a kid on the cover of a Robert Cormier young adult novel, circling around puzzled Jewish families walking back to their cars. This is how I learned to ride a bike. ~ Mindy Kaling

She closed the distance between them and gave him a tentative hug. He was liberally cologned, with a scent that incited bewildering memories. She circled him, not knowing why. She had only met him a few weeks back, yet tonight, something about him triggered old memories, of a time, a person.
Maybe not.
What she did know, he lacked that special ingredient that moved her. Dull as ditch water. He was sufficiently polite, but that was about all she could say. –Michael Benzehabe, from the novel Unassimilated ~ Michael Ben Zehabe

If I sit down to write a young-adult novel, then I'm going to write either to the punch-pulling expectation of what I can't do, or I'm going to go the other way and think about what can I sneak in to be 'down with the kids' - which would be excruciating. ~ Patrick Ness

I've never read a young adult novel, though. I'm sure I would love it, but I've never read one. ~ Elizabeth Olsen

I do not believe that I will ever write an adult novel from an animal's point of view unless someday it becomes suddenly appealing to me to make a narrator a mentally ill pet. Never say never. ~ Andrea Seigel

As far as I can tell, a young adult novel is a regular novel that people actually read. ~ Stephen Colbert

Time had taught him that whether his sins were pardoned or left unforgiven, they would remain committed. Tomorrow he would hopefully choose wiser, with a stronger measure of compassion. ~ Roy L. Pickering Jr.

I didn't consciously make the decision to write an adult novel. I didn't think of it as my riposte to the YA genre. ~ Mal Peet

We mature not by years, but by stories…" from Cinderella In Focus:Cindy's Secret ~ H.L. Balcomb

The movie, like the book before it, is an expertly built machine for the mass production of tears. Directed by Josh Boone ('Stuck in Love') with scrupulous respect for John Green's best-selling young-adult novel, the film sets out to make you weep
not just sniffle or choke up a little, but sob until your nose runs and your face turns blotchy. It succeeds. ~ A.O. Scott

He's made me believe I'm worth love of the liquid kind, you know, the kind that seeps to all my damaged parts. ~ Zandile

Because I don't think I have a handle on how to write for grown-ups. The grown-up publishing world is so fraught with one-upsmanship, scorn and snobbery. I did write an adult novel. Thank goodness it went out of print. I think we kids' authors still start out with hope every morning. We honor our audience. ~ Virginia Euwer Wolff

My foray into young adult lit was by no means planned. I wrote the first 'Alfred Kropp' book as an adult novel, which everyone loved but no one would publish - until I changed my protagonist from a thirty-something P.I. into a 15-year-old kid. After that, it was off to the races, and I am so glad. ~ Rick Yancey

My first book was an adult novel, 'Down Among the Gods,' published by Virago, and I've written poems as well, a slim volume of poetry. ~ Kate Thompson

On occasion we stumble upon what seems to be a truth. Compared to the surrounding blackness, it sparkles and dazzles our eyes. But are these actually truths? Are our eyes really feasting upon light? Or just patches of grey? ~ Roy L. Pickering Jr.

I am still bowled over by this great young adult novel by David Levithan called 'Every Day,' which is about a character with no gender or body who wakes up every day in the body of a different person. It's a really impressive execution of a really great premise. ~ John Green

In the usual way I submitted manuscripts to publishers. This was not so much a feeling that I should be published as a wish to escape the feared and hated drudgery of "normal" work. In my twenties some of my work for children was published by Macmillan. However, I was twenty-seven before my adult novel, The Birthgrave, was taken by DAW Books in the USA. This enabled me finally to stop doing stupid and soul-killing jobs, and start working day and night as a professional writer. It felt like a rescue from damnation, and still does. ~ Tanith Lee

In books and movies, the stories always end when the two people finally have their romantic kiss. The happily-ever-after part is just assumed ~ Gayle Forman

I'd never really considered doing young-adult novels, but one of the things that a friend pointed out to me is that I've actually had a teenage character in almost every adult novel that I've written. ~ Michelle Gagnon

I am not only the person who wrote and sold a novel while raising a houseful of biological and foster children; I am also the person who wrote a horrific young adult novel that never sold and gave up on a foster child I couldn't handle - an experience that still haunts me. ~ Vanessa Diffenbaugh

I don't think I ever intended specifically to write for the young adult market. It's just that when the idea for City of Bones came to me, I knew the main characters were teenagers. In my mind they were just very clearly the ages they were, which turned out to mean it was a YA novel. ~ Cassandra Clare

Whether we think of Disney's blonde beauty and her pumpkin carriage or Marissa Meyer's recent recasting of 'Cinderella' as a cyborg in the young adult novel 'Cinder,' we know that there are countless modern retellings of the tale. ~ Marie Rutkoski

The book that made a lasting impression was the one my mother gave each of us when she decided we were ready for our first 'adult novel,' Lucy Maud Montgomery's 'The Blue Castle.' ~ Hallie Ephron

Before I was reading science fiction, I read Hemingway. Farewell to Arms was my first adult novel that said not everything ends well. It was one of those times where reading has meant a great deal to me, in terms of my development - an insight came from that book. ~ Robert Reed

In terms of age, I think I've covered about as wide a range as is possible, having written everything from picture books to early chapter books to middle grade novels to YA to one adult novel - and having been editor and lead writer for a magazine for retired people! ~ Bruce Coville

Do not rob yourself of happiness.
Do not hold yourself hostage.
Do not miss out on living a well-fulfilled life.
Life is supposed to be lived - each day is progress. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

This is not your mom's fairy tale.'

From a review of my novel, 'Course of Mirrors. ~ Ashen Venema

Read like mad. But try to do it analytically - which can be hard, because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices out, however: they might come in useful in your own work. ~ Sarah Waters

Although by 1851 tales of adventure had begun to seem antiquated, they had rendered a large service to the course of literature: they had removed the stigma, for the most part, from the word novel. ~ Carl Clinton Van Doren

In the early days of the New England colonies, no more embarrassing or hampering condition, no greater temporal ill, could befall any adult Puritan than to be unmarried. ~ Alice Morse Earle

I wanted to be that kind of shining adult. But would I get there if I was always worrying about what my parents thought? ~ Kabi Nagata

I'm a graphic-novel guy. I can't handle the wait for monthly or bi-monthly comics; I need the story finished so I can buy the whole thing. ~ Chris Wooding

Don't Rush Up The Stairs, you Just Might Fall. Take it One Step At A Time! ~ Latif Mercado

How does a poor country defeat rich ones?" "Indeed, the answer is not by acquiring wealth in the sense that France has it." "Meaning vineyards, farms, peasants, cows?" "But rather to play a sort of trick and redefine wealth to mean something novel." "Currency!" "Indeed. ~ Neal Stephenson

I read old novels. The reason is simple: I prefer proper endings. Marriages and deaths, noble sacrifices and miraculous restorations, tragic separations and unhoped-for reunions, great falls and dreams fulfilled; these, in my view, constitute an ending worth the wait. They should come after adventures, perils, dangers and dilemmas, and wind everything up nice and neatly. Endings like this are to be found more commonly in old novels than new ones, so I read old novels. ~ Diane Setterfield

I love you, Silvia. I have always loved you. I loved you before forever began and I'll love you still after forever ends.
Oliver ~ Melodie Ramone

Novelists congratulate themselves on their creation of this kind of "character" or that kind of "character," and readers pretend to talk knowingly about "character," but all it amounts to is that the writers are enjoying themselves writing lies and the readers are enjoying themselves reading lies. In fact, there is no such thing as character, something fixed and final. The real thing is something that novelists don't know how to write about. Or, if they tried, the end result would never be a novel. Real people are strangely difficult to make sense out of. Even a god would have his hands full trying. ~ Soseki Natsume

Perhaps, all writers walk such a line. In general - as we all do in our dreams - I believe I put something of myself into all the characters in my novels, male as well as female. ~ Rose Tremain

The novel has become the leading hero in the drama of literary development in our time precisely because it best of all reflects the tendencies of a new world still in the making; it is, after all, the only genre born of this new world and in total affinity with it. ~ Mikhail Bakhtin

Ellis smiled at her concern and kissed her cheek once more. "I promise. I'll come home if I need help." He stepped back and gave them a bow, showing his respect.
With their permission, he left the counsel room and headed straight to his room. He packed supplies for the journey. His mother had warned him that no magic worked inside of The Forbidden Woods or even in the outskirts of it. He would have to walk there on foot and hope that no one loyal to Walter caught up with him on his way. ~ Elaine White

The painter paints, the musician makes music, the novelist writes novels. But I believe that we all have some influence, not because of the fact that one is an artist, but because we are citizens. As citizens, we all have an obligation to intervene and become involved, it's the citizen who changes things. I can't imagine myself outside any kind of social or political involvement. ~ Jose Saramago

Apparently I couldn't even pretend to be normal. ~ Tom Upton

Well, I'm Buddhist, Ray, and so part of my Buddhism has allowed me to look a little more deeply at people and the events in my life that created me. And I think a lot of that Buddhism comes out in the world view in this novel. ~ Sandra Cisneros

But I want you to know," Cleo continued, "that there is hope. And that I am living proof of that hope. Because, even though I was forced into this marriage against my will, I have come to know Prince Magnus Lukas Damora very well these last months. And one thing I've learned is that Prince Magnus is nothing like his father. Prince Magnus is brave and compassionate, and he truly wants what's just and best for this kingdom. Kindness is what makes a good king who will put the needs and rights of his people before his own desires. ~ Morgan Rhodes

Dead skin is brittle and dry, and when it sheds, our skin glows and it is smooth and vibrant. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Mr. Charles Dickens was serializing his novel Oliver Twist; Mr. Draper had just taken the first photograph of the moon, freezing her pale face on cold paper; Mr. Morse had recently announced a way of transmitting messages down metal wires. Had you mentioned magic or Faerie to any of them, they would have smiled at you disdainfully, except, perhaps for Mr. Dickens, at the time a young man, and beardless. He would have looked at you wistfully. ~ Neil Gaiman

The great advantage of a novel is you can put in whatever comes into your head - it has the same shape as the human brain. ~ Michel Houellebecq

In our hip-hop lives we make rhymes we make beats we go big or go home. - Esme from Sister Mischief ~ Laura Goode

For her, from the Tiber down, there, there beyond the crumbling castles, and after the blond vineyards, there was, on the hills and mountains, and in the brief plains of Italy, a kind of great fertile womb, two swollen Eustachian tubes, streaked with an abundance of granules, the granular and greasy, the happy caviar of the race. From time to time, from the great Ovary ripened follicles opened, like pomegranate seeds: and red grains, mad with amorous certitude, descended upon the city, to encounter the male afflatus, the vitalizing impulse, that spermatic aura of which the ovarists of the eighteenth century wrote their fantastic treatise. ~ Carlo Emilio Gadda

An immersive murder mystery wrapped in an emotionally astute look at the burden of a town's moral history." -- Kirkus Reviews ~ Richard Snodgrass

Novels have become equally important to me as films. I consider myself a storyteller and passionately engaged in both of those disciplines. ~ Rebecca Miller

There's an old folk saying that goes: whenever you delete a sentence from your NaNoWriMo novel, a NaNoWriMo angel loses its wings and plummets, screaming, to the ground. Where it will likely require medical attention. ~ Chris Baty

He promised he'd never leave me. That we'd be friends forever."
"He was foolish to promise such things, ~ Jen Wylie

Heroes, well, they don't live so long. But they're muy suave, and we all admire them. ~ Nancy Farmer

I think the difficulty lies in the immeasurable vanity of the human adult, particularly the pedagogical adult,… which does not permit him to recognize as good any tendency in children to fly in the face of his conceptions of a correct human being; to recognize that may be here is something highly desirable, to be encourage, rather than destroyed as pernicious…. [Y]our teacher has usually well-defined conceptions of what men and women have to be. And if a boy is too lively, too noisy, too restless, too curious, to suit the concept, he must be trimmed and subdued. ~ Voltairine De Cleyre

Many Japanese kids don't express themselves. They would rather express themselves in a fantasy world and through passive-agressive behavior. They go on behavior strike, they go into emotional shutdown. This is one of the ways of expressing a Japanese way of life. But in acting this way, these children are simply mirroring the behavior they see among adult Japanese, especially those from elite or privileged backgrounds. ~ Michael Zielenziger

I think it's pretty common for teenagers to fantasize about dying young. We knew that time would force us into sacrifices - we wanted to flame out before making the choices that would determine who we became. When you were an adult, all the promise of your life was foreclosed upon, every day just a series of compromises mitigated by little pleasures that distracted you from your former wildness, from your truth. ~ Julie Buntin

Poetry is not an esoteric art cultivated by dreamy young men in open collars and with wispy beards. Its finest masters have always been men and women of outstanding energy and great, though by no means common, sense. Poetry is the most economical way of saying certain things that cannot be said in any other way. At its most intense it expresses better than other forms of literature whatever is left of us when we are not involved in instinct-following, surviving, competing, or problem-solving. Its major property is not, as some suppose, beauty. It is power. It is the most powerful form of communication. It does the most work per syllable, operating on a vast field - that of our emotions. It gains its efficiency from the use of certain levers - rhythm, music, rhyme, metaphor, and many more - for which other forms of communication are less well adapted. Some poetry, especially modern poetry, is difficult. But just as our ears have accustomed themselves to difficult music, so our understanding, if we are willing to make an effort, can accustom itself to the most condensed and superficially strange verse. At one time poetry was as democratic an art as the novel is nowadays. It can be so again, if we are willing to make it so. ~ Clifton Fadiman

There is no other way of writing a novel than to begin at the beginning at to continue to the end. ~ C.S. Forester

They're constrained by a shortage of people who excel at choosing the right novel ideas. The ~ Adam M. Grant

To ask a novelist to talk about his novels is like asking somebody to cook about their dancing. ~ Jim Crace

I thought I'd been condescended to as an Indian - that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing young adult literature. ~ Sherman Alexie

What is this 'I'? If you analyse it closely you will, I think, find that it is just a little bit more than a collection of single data (experiences and memories), namely the canvas upon which they are collected. And you will, on close introspection, find that what you really mean by 'I' is that ground-stuff upon which they are collected. You may come to a distant country, lose sight of all your friends, may all but forget them; you acquire new friends, you share life with them as intensely as you ever did with your old ones. Less and less important will become the fact that, while living your new life, you still recollect the old one. 'The youth that was I', you may come to speak of him in the third person, indeed the protagonist of the novel you are reading is probably nearer to your heart, certainly more intensely alive and better known to you. Yet there has been no intermediate break, no death. And even if a skilled hypnotist succeeded in blotting out entirely all your earlier reminiscences, you would not find that he had killed you. In no case is there a loss of personal existence to deplore. Nor will there ever be. ~ Erwin Schrodinger

adult working in the field of science and doing lectures ~ Noelle Adams