Elizabeth Bowen Novel Quotations

the slight sense of degeneracy induced by reading novels before luncheon

The novelist's--any writer's--object is to whittle down his meaning to the exactest and finest possible point. What, of course, isfatal is when he does not know what he does mean: he has no point to sharpen.

In 'real life' everything is diluted; in the novel everything is condensed.

Art, at any rate in a novel, must be indissolubly linked with craft ...

But in general, for the purposes of most novelists, the number of objects genuinely necessary for. . .describing a scene will be found to be very small.

The novel does not simply recount experience, it adds to experience.