Comic Novel Quotes

The last time I was this confused I was watching a Fassbinder film. ~ Ken O'Neill

I won't read a new graphic comic novel until the writer has completed the entire series. I got burned a few times when I got turned on to a book, plowed through it only to find out the author was in the middle of writing the next. ~ Nick Offerman

Comic books are what novels used to be - an accessible, vernacular form with mass appeal - and if the highbrows are right, they're a form perfectly suited to our dumbed-down culture and collective attention deficit. ~ Charles McGrath

Wise Blood was written by an author congenitally innocent of theory, but one with certain preoccupations. That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them Hazel Motes' integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to. Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen. ~ Flannery O'Connor

Wise Blood has reached the age of ten and is still alive. My critical powers are just sufficient to determine this, and I am gratified to be able to say it. The book was written with zest and, if possible, it should be read that way. It is a comic novel about a Christian malgré lui, and as such, very serious, for all comic novels that are any good must be about matters of life and death. Wise Blood was written by an author congenitally innocent of theory, but one with certain preoccupations. That belief in Christ is to some a matter of life and death has been a stumbling block for some readers who would prefer to think it a matter of no great consequence. For them, Hazel Motes's integrity lies in his trying with such vigor to get rid of the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of his mind. For the author, Hazel's integrity lies in his not being able to do so. Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.

(Preface to second edition, 1962) ~ Flannery O'Connor

The language in a comic book or a graphic novel and the cinematographic language are really not the same language. They are false brother and sister. It's not at all the same. ~ Marjane Satrapi

Fobbit is fast, razor sharp, and seven kinds of hilarious. Thank you, Mr. Abrams, for the much needed salve
it feels good to finally laugh about Iraq. Fobbit deserves a place alongside Slaughterhouse Five and Catch-22 as one of our great comic novels about the absurdity of war. ~ Jonathan Evison

I havent been doin much comic book writing for the last several years though, as Ive been writing television projects and a novel. ~ Bill Mumy

Of comic novels that have quaffed the elixir of 'classic': Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm. ~ Cynthia Ozick

...element of comedy is never completely eliminated from irony. But irony is something more than comedy. A comic situation is proved to be an ironic one if a hidden relation is discovered in the incongruity. If virtue becomes vice through some hidden defect in the virtue; if strength becomes weakness because of the vanity to which strength may prompt the mighty man or nation; if security is transmuted into insecurity because too much reliance is placed upon it; if wisdom becomes folly because it does not know its own limits – in all such cases the situation is ironic.
The ironic situation is distinguished from a pathetic one by the fact that the person involved in it bears some responsibility from it. It is differentiated from tragedy by the fact that the responsibility is related to an unconscious weakness rather than a conscious resolution. While a pathetic or a tragic situation is not dissolved when a person becomes conscious of his involvement in it, an ironic situation must dissolve, if men or nations are made aware of their complicity in it…. or it leads to a desperate accentuation of the vanities to the point where irony turns into pure evil. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

Your machinery is beautiful. Your society people have apologized to me for the envious ridicule with which your newspapers have referred to me. Your newspapers are comic but never amusing. Your Water Tower is a castellated monstrosity with pepperboxes stuck all over it. I am amazed that any people could so abuse Gothic art and make a structure not like a water tower but like a tower of a medieval castle. It should be torn down. It is a shame to spend so much money on buildings with such an unsatisfactory result. Your city looks positively dreary. ~ Oscar Wilde

I've started many novels, and they all ended on page seven. ~ Grace Paley

If writers stuck to firsthand experience, novels would be pretty limited. ~ Stef Penney

Anyone who had ever read a novel knew that governesses were supposed to be meek and downtrodden. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Was it possible that the emotion of love had somehow made me more susceptible to fear? Does the noble emotion of love make us start valuing our own lives and the lives of our loved ones more so that the feeling of fear creeps into our mindset? ~ Vivek Pereira

I wrote three novels in six months, with a clarity of focus and attention to detail that I had never before experienced. This type of sublime creative energy is characteristic of the elevated and productive mood state known as hypomania. ~ Ayelet Waldman

Certainly 'The Judgment of Paris' was the novel in which I found my own voice. ~ Gore Vidal

It's a given that we exist in a world where we have to live in continuity every day; no one is immune to that, in life or romance novels. By the same token, it's not something I find terribly important. ~ Neil Gaiman

He downs the contents of his glass in a single gulp and, looking at Simon, adds: "This is as amusing as a novel. ~ Laurent Binet

If you can read and have more imagination than a doorknob, what need do you have for a 'movie version' of a novel? ~ Wendell Berry

Part of what I love about novels and dogs is that they are so beautifully oblivious to economic concerns. We serve them, and in return they thrive. It's not their responsibility to figure out where the rent is coming from. ~ Ann Patchett

I had just begun an M.A. in Creative Writing, and I had to write a novel, so I began writing a novel that later became 'A Life Apart.' ~ Neel Mukherjee

What I want is to respond to the challenge posed by the mass media - to permit the novel to say what can only be said by narrative - to allow it to be itself. ~ Carlos Fuentes

The only thing which can tell us about the novel is the novel. ~ Edwin Muir

My first job was to run a concessions cart. Later, I found a position at the Pacific Film Archive. Thus began a long series of jobs, each one slightly better than the last, that continued for a decade, until I sold my first novel, and still goes on, even now. ~ Mona Simpson

Every novel is an attempt to capture time, to weave something solid out of air. The author knows it is an impossible task - that is why he keeps on trying. ~ David Beaty

For a novel need not be full of sorrow just because its heroes are suffering. ~ Orhan Pamuk

Doing crime films ... maybe it's to some extent a matter of taste. Certainly my first novel had a criminal element and was about the similarity of criminals and artists. Pretextually, it was sort of a money bag thriller. But it was aggressively not what it seemed to be. It was kind of Duchamps. ~ William Monahan

Power to Laura Boudreau-McPherson-O'Brien: Laura's Story is about a woman finding her place in the world, and her voice, while struggling against poverty, societal limitations, and at times, herself. Anyone who has had to fight for what she believes in or come up against odds be they external or internal, will relate to this book. Women will feel strength and will realize that though this novel is a work of fiction, it is authentic in its aim to give a voice to many women's untold stories. Happy International Women's Day everyone! ~ Julie Larade

I had an American journalist say to me, "Is it true you wrote the whole of the first novel on napkins?" I was tempted to say, "On teabags, I used to save them. ~ J.K. Rowling

The most important thing in business is a persona, Nico,' he was fond of saying. 'People want to know immediately what they're dealing with. And when they think about you, you've got to stand out in their minds
like one of those characters in a novel. ~ Candace Bushnell

My Eyes Are Open But I'm Hardly Looking In The Front ... Everything's Passing Me, Some Are Staring But My Eyes Are Blank, I'm Seeing But Not Seeing As My Mind Is Not Sending The Message To My Brains To Produce Images ... I'm Walking Alone Yet Full of People Around Me ... I'm Walking Forward ... There's No Feeling As I'm Numb ... Only Thing I Know, I Have To Finish My Ride Before My Time Expires ... So I'm Walking With Blank Emotion In My Eyes ...
(* Excerpt From My Novel "Eastern Promise") ~ Muhammad Imran Hasan

I had to detach myself from myself, if that makes any sense, to conjure an authentic first-person voice. In that sense, it was similar to writing a first-person novel. But I was writing about real people, not fictional ones - myself, my family, my friends and boyfriends and ex-husband, and that was extremely tricky. ~ Kate Christensen

I recently spoke at a university where a student told me it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had recently read a novel called American Psycho,and that it was a shame that young Americans were serial murderers. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The critic lives at second hand. He writes about. The poem, the novel, or the play must be given to him; criticism exists by the grace of other men's genius. ~ George Steiner

Don't start right off writing the 'Great American Novel', that's too much pressure and you'll get disappointed; start with porn, it's fun and a good way to get your feet wet. ~ Scavola

Ah, now,' the count said casually, 'you must do as you wish, Viscount, because this is your business and you are in charge; but I must say that in your place I should say nothing of all these adventures. Your life story is a novel; and people, though they love novels bound between two yellow paper covers, are oddly suspicious of those which come to them in living vellum, even when they are as gilded as you are capable of being. Allow me to point out this difficulty to you, Monsieur le Vicomte, which is that no sooner will you have told your touching story to someone, that it will travel all round society, completely distorted. You will have to play the part of Antony, and Antony's day has passed somewhat. You might perhaps enjoy the reputation of a curiosity, but not everyone likes to be the centre of attention and the butt of comment. It might possibly fatigue you. ~ Alexandre Dumas

When one is the type of writer who cares about the meaning of the historically specific setting, the history itself is not something that I would call backdrop. It's not window dressing for a timeless relationship about love and betrayal. For me, the setting and the specific history are active co-agents with me in trying to form the novel. ~ Rachel Kushner

In the comic-book world, there tends to be an overblown sense of tradition. Bad habits die hard. There are ways I think the form could work more effectively if we lost the bad habits that were created before we were born. ~ Frank Miller