"The thriller is the most popular literary genre of the 20th century."

Writing, Literary, Popular

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"The thriller is the most popular literary genre of the 20th century."

Exlpore more Writing quotes

"A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals. He isn't telling, or teaching, or ordering. Rather, he seeks to establish a relationship with meaning, of feeling, of observing. We are lonesome animals. We spend all our live trying to be less lonesome. And one of our ancient methods is to tell a story, begging the listener to say, and to feel, "Yes, that's the way it is, or at least that's the way I feel it. You're not as alone as you thought." To finish is sadness to a writer, a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done."

John Steinbeck, American Author

Writing, Loneliness, Communication, Story

"Every writer has to figure out what works best - and often has to select and discard different tools before they find the one that fits."

Nora Roberts, American Author

Writing, Tools, Writer

"If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day."

Philip Pullman, British Writer

Writing, Day, Luck

"Certainly the plagiarism, and dealing with the fallout of it, was the most difficult thing I've ever faced since I started writing."

Nora Roberts, American Author

Writing, Plagiarism

"In the summer of '80, Silhouette bought my first book."

Nora Roberts, American Author

Writing, First, Summer

"Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it."

Toni Morrison, American Novelist

Writing, World

"I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine."

Emily Dickinson, American Poet

Writing, Word, Power, Expression

"Every author believes, when his first book is published, that those that acclaim it are his personal friends or impersonal peers, while its revilers can only be envious rogues and nonentities."

Vladimir Nabokov, American Novelist

Writing, Ego, Criticism, Success

"In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them."

W. H. Auden, English Poet

Writing, May, Writer

"Bad writing is more than a matter of shit syntax and faulty observation; bad writing usually arises from a stubborn refusal to tell stories about what people actually do- to face the fact, let us say, that murderers sometimes help old ladies cross the street."

Stephen King, American Author

Writing, Truth, Wisdom, Power, Regret

Explore more quotes by Ken Follett

"When I'm writing a woman character, I don't think, 'What would a woman do?' I just think, 'What would this character do in this situation?'"

Character

"Most of my stories have some basis in fact."

Fact

"I enjoy learning technical details."

Learning

"The CIA's research program is described in a book called The Search for the Manchurian Candidate."

Research

"I don't think there's any great mystery to writing female characters, so long as you talk to them. If you lived in a monastery and never met any women, maybe it would be difficult."

Woman

"The research is the easiest. The outline is the most fun. The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out. The rewrite is very satisfying."

Writing

"An awful lot of thriller writers write women rather badly. So just doing it OK gets a lot of credit."

Woman

"For success, the author must make the reader care about the destiny of the principals, and sustain this anxiety, or suspense, for about 100,000 words."

Success

"I like to create imaginary characters and events around a real historical situation. I want readers to feel: OK, this probably didn't happen, but it might have."

Events

"With hindsight, we see that the Soviet Union never had a chance of world domination, but we didn't know that then."

Chance