The second person to write a story about a young boy and an escaped slave on the Mississippi wasn't a novelist, he was a typist.

Anything whatsoever may become the subject of a novel, provided only that it happens in this mundane life and not in some fairyland beyond our human ken.

If anyone is in a hurry to read my novel, all he's got to do is keep me daily supplied with roast duck and good Shaoxing wine, and I'll be happy to oblige him.

I find it insufferable too the way people spread word about the latest novelties and make a fuss over them. I am charmed by the man who remains unaware of such fashions until they have become quite an old story to everyone else.

I began plotting novels at about the time I learned to read. The story of my childhood is the usual bleak fantasy, and we can dismiss it with the restrained observation that I certainly would not consider living it again.

Something Happened by Joseph Heller

Who does the novel belong to? I am writing about a different reality, so I need to shape it to fit my reality. You don’t want to do the same. You don’t want to do the done thing. To take a risk, you still need to be absolutely on the margins. I am doing what I want to do.

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people's mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it, but fear I must.