Only a literary work that reveals an unknown fragment of human existence has a reason for being.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.
Fiction's about what it is to be a human being.
For a novelist, a given historic situation is an anthropologic laboratory in which he explores his basic question: What is human existence?
The greatest writers of this age... are aware of the mystery of our existence.
The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.
The writer needs to react to his or her own internal universe, to his or her own point of view. If he or she doesn't have a personal point of view, it's impossible to be a creator.
Reason is a fine thing, but it is not the only thing available to a writer. It's just part of the arsenal of many things available to a storyteller. Revelation, for example.
Literature... is the union of suffering with the instinct for form.
The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party.
For me, novels coalesce into being, rather than arrive fully formed.