Novelist

Explore 912 quotes by Novelists

Take your delight in momentariness,
Walk between dark and dark-a shining space
With the grave’s narrowness, though not its peace.

Robert Graves

More information about this quote

Topic

Shortness of life The ephemeral Life

Author

Robert Graves

Source

Sick Love

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1929 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Original Citation

Graves, Robert. "Sick Love." Poems 1929. Seizin Press, 1929, l. 10-12.

Current Citation

Graves, Robert. "Sick Love." The Complete Poems: In One Volume. Penguin Books, 2003, l. 10-12.

The dragon-green, the luminous, the dark, the serpent-haunted sea.

James Elroy Flecker

More information about this quote

Topic

Ocean and sea

Author

James Elroy Flecker

Source

The Gates of Damascus

Medium

Poem

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1915 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Flecker, James Elroy. "The Gates of Damascus." The Collected Poems of James Elroy Flecker. Doubleday, Page & Co., 1916, I. 33.

Dies, all dies!
The grass it dies, but in vernal rain
Up it springs and it lives again;
Over and over, again and again
It lives, it dies and it lives again.

Herman Melville

Works

More information about this quote

Topic

Grass Circle of life

Author

Herman Melville

Source

Pontoosuce Works

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1891 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Melville, Herman. "Pontoosuce." Works. Vol. 16, Constable, 1924, I. 71.

Current Citation

Melville, Herman. "Pontoosuce." Selected Poems of Herman Melville. Penguin Classics, 2006, I. 71.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

Jack London

The Call of the Wild

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Read The Call of the Wild at Project Gutenberg

More information about this quote

Topic

Feeling alive The human condition

Author

Jack London

Source

The Call of the Wild

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1903 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

London, Jack. The Call of the Wild. Macmillan, 1903, ch. 3.

Current Citation

London, Jack. "The Call of the Wild." The Call of the Wild and Selected Stories. Signet, 2009, ch. 3.

Why then should women be denied the benefit of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God Almighty would never have given them capacities.

Daniel Defoe

More information about this quote

Topic

Women's rights Education Women

Author

Daniel Defoe

Source

Of Academies: An Academy for Women An Essay Upon Projects

Medium

Essay

Statement Type

Question

Language

English

Time

1697 1690s 17th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Defoe, Daniel. "Of Academies: An Academy for Women." An Essay Upon Projects. London: Tho. Cockerill, 1697.

Success is more dangerous than failure, (the ripples break over a wider coastline).

Graham Greene

More information about this quote

Topic

Success and failure Success Failure

Author

Graham Greene

Source

Ways of Escape

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1980 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Greene, Graham. Ways of Escape. The Bodley Head, 1980, ch. 8, sec. 3.

Yes, quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown.

Thomas Hardy

More information about this quote

Topic

Absurdity of war War

Author

Thomas Hardy

Source

The Man He Killed

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1902 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Hardy, Thomas. "The Man He Killed." Harper's Weekly, 8 Nov. 1902.

Current Citation

Hardy, Thomas. "The Man He Killed." Selected Poems. Penguin Classics, 1998.

We cannot judge either of the feelings of the character of men with perfect accuracy, from their actions or their appearance in public; it is from their careless conversation, their half-finished sentences, that we may hope with the greatest probability of success to discover their real characters.

Maria Edgeworth

More information about this quote

Topic

Public vs. private person Character

Author

Maria Edgeworth

Source

Castle Rackrent

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1800 1800s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Edgeworth, Maria. Castle Rackrent. London: J. Johnson, 1800, preface.

Current Citation

Edgeworth, Maria. Castle Rackrent, edited by Ryan Twomey. W. W. Norton & Company, 2014, preface.

Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation.

Daniel Defoe

More information about this quote

Topic

The devil

Author

Daniel Defoe

Source

The True-Born Englishman: A Satyr

Medium

Poem

Genre

Satire

Language

English

Time

1701 1700s 18th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Defoe, Daniel. The True-Born Englishman: A Satyr. 1701, pt. 1, I. 1.

How wrong to have been so negative, how wrong to have been so gloomy, how wrong to have run away from life, how wrong to have said no, again and again, instead of yes.

Jonathan Franzen

The Corrections

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More information about this quote

Topic

Negativity Missed opportunities

Author

Jonathan Franzen

Source

The Corrections

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

2001 2000s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Franzen, Jonathan. The Corrections. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001.

Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other. There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there may never be two that love one another equally well.

Thornton Wilder

The Bridge on San Luis Rey

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More information about this quote

Topic

Inequality in love Love

Author

Thornton Wilder

Source

The Bridge on San Luis Rey

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1927 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Wilder, Thornton. The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Albert & Charles Boni, 1927.

Current Citation

Wilder, Thornton. The Bridge of San Luis Rey. Vintage, 2023.

For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.

Milan Kundera

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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More information about this quote

Topic

Empathy Compassion

Author

Milan Kundera

Source

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Medium

Novel

Language

Czech

Time

1984 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Kundera, Milan. L'insoutenable légèreté de l'être [The Unbearable Lightness of Being]. Gallimard, 1984.

Current Citation

Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, translated by Michael Henry Heim. Harper Perennial, 2009.

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.

L.P. Hartley

The Go-Between

More information about this quote

Topic

The past Past and present

Author

L.P. Hartley

Source

The Go-Between

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1953 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hartley, L. P. The Go-Between. Hamish Hamilton, 1953, preface.

Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

More information about this quote

Topic

Power of words Power of literature Literature Writing

Author

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Source

Journals of Nathaniel Hawthorne

Medium

Personal journal

Language

English

Time

1848 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Journal entry. 18 May 1848.

Truth-loving Persians do not dwell upon
The trivial skirmish fought near Marathon.

Robert Graves

The Persian Version

Read this poem at allpoetry.com

More information about this quote

Topic

Different perspectives

Author

Robert Graves

Source

The Persian Version

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1946 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Graves, Robert. "The Persian Version." Poems 1938-1945: Satires and Grotesques. Cassell & Company, 1946, I. 1.

An apology for the Devil: It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.

Samuel Butler (Novelist)

More information about this quote

Topic

The devil

Author

Samuel Butler (Novelist)

Medium

Personal journal

Language

English

Time

1902 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Samuel Butler. The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, edited by Henry Festing Jones. A. C. Fifield, 1912, ch. 14.

What a misfortune it is to be born a woman!... Why seek for knowledge, which can prove only that our wretchedness is irremediable? If a ray of light break in upon us, it is but to make darkness more visible; to show us the narrow limits, the Gothic structure, the impenetrable barriers of our prison.

Maria Edgeworth

More information about this quote

Topic

Oppression of women Women

Author

Maria Edgeworth

Source

Leonora

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1806 1800s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Edgeworth, Maria. Leonora. London: J. Johnson, 1806, letter 1.

Sometimes I think the purpose of life is to reconcile us to its eventual loss by wearing us down, by proving, however long it takes, that life isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Julian Barnes

The Sense of an Ending

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More information about this quote

Topic

Purpose of life The human condition

Author

Julian Barnes

Source

The Sense of an Ending

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

2011 2010s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. Jonathan Cape/Alfred A. Knopf, 2011, ch. 2.

And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

Thomas Hardy

More information about this quote

Topic

Disaster Foreboding

Author

Thomas Hardy

Source

The Convergence of the Twain

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1912 1910s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Hardy, Thomas. "The Convergence of the Twain." Souvenir Programme for the Titanic Disaster Fund, 1912, st. 8.

Current Citation

Hardy, Thomas. "The Convergence of the Twain." Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems, edited by Robert Mezey. Penguin Classics, 1998, st. 8.

What is love? There is nothing in the world, neither man nor Devil nor any thing, that I hold as suspect as love, for it penetrates the soul more than any other thing. Nothing exists that so fills and binds the heart as love does. Therefore, unless you have those weapons that subdue it, the soul plunges through love into an immense abyss.

Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose

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More information about this quote

Topic

Dangers of love Nature of love Love

Author

Umberto Eco

Source

The Name of the Rose

Medium

Novel

Language

Italian

Time

1980 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Eco, Umberto. Il nome della rosa [The Name of the Rose]. Bompiani, 1980.

Current Citation

Eco, Humberto. The Name of the Rose, translated by William Weaver. HarperVia, 2014.