A Quote by Richard Russo

I get and read an enormous number of first novels. — © Richard Russo
I get and read an enormous number of first novels.
My first attraction to writing novels was the plot, that almost extinct animal. Those novels I read which made me want to be a novelist were long, always plotted, novels - not just Victorian novels, but also those of my New England ancestors: Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
I read all types of books. I read Christian books, I read black novels, I read religious books. I read stuff like 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' and 'The Dictator's Handbook' and then I turned around and read science-fiction novels.
Read. Read. Read. Read. Read great books. Read poetry, history, biography. Read the novels that have stood the test of time. And read closely.
I have read a number of books, starting with novels, that I particularly liked.
I read novels for entertainment rather than for edification, so I tend not to read the sort of novels that are said to illuminate the human condition.
There're no novels that I like to read so I write my own novels, and then I read them again, and it's the best thing.
I have to read comic books all first, because now when you get into graphic novels, they are definitely in deep graphic.
When I was working on a Victorian-era novel, to get in the mood, I read several historical novels set in approximately the same period and place, and really enjoyed the detective novels of John Dickson Carr.
Maybe I've just read too many novels. In novels, alcoholics are always attractive and fuuny and charming and complex, like Sebastian Flyte or ABe North in Tender in the Night, and they're drinking because of a deep, unquenchable sadness of the soul, or the terrible legacy of the First World War, whereas I just get drunk because I'm thirsty, and I like the taste of lager.
I would like my novels to be read the way I read the novels I love.
I'd read one too many crime novels where the victim was just a name: body number one, dead woman number 12. I understood fear, and I wanted to create characters who made readers say, 'Please, don't hurt this guy.' That's the key to suspense. It's easy to disgust a reader. It's much harder to make them care.
I had a very mixed kind of childhood reading. I read the childhood classics like 'Robinson Crusoe,' 'Alice in Wonderland,' 'Chums Annual.' At the same time, I read an enormous number of American comics because Shanghai was an American zone of influence.
I left my job as a feature writer on a newspaper to write a book, then sent it off to a number of agents thinking they would all reject me. Within a week, most had come back to say they loved what they had read, which then led to a bidding war for my first two novels.
If you read novels of the 19th century, they're pretty experimental. They take lots of chances; they seem to break a lot of rules. You've got omniscient narrators lecturing at times to the reader in first person. If you go back to the earliest novels, this is happening to a wild extent, like 'Tristram Shandy' or 'Don Quixote'.
A surprising number [of novels] have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if they do not end unhappily-against which a law ought to be passed.
If you read the first page of one of my novels, I can guarantee that you will read the last one. This isn't just social commentary. This is also about writing good page-turners. I want people to keep reading.
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