Debut Novel Quotes & Sayings

Any debut novel is usually a case of spitting into the wind - or, just maybe, casting your bread upon the waters. Without an established audience in place, first-time authors have to hope for resonant word of mouth and a receptive reviewer or three. — Paul Di Filippo

This, I think, is a little glimpse of what life could be like without my family. Home could be a place of laughter and love, a refuge. I'm filled with a terrifying weightlessness, like I've jumped off a cliff, but I know that if I don't look down, I'll be just fine. — Heather Demetrios

Brian organised for the body to be flown back. — Jolene Tan

In its basic form, nursing can be seen as a duty, but beyond the incessant operational activities that lay the foundation of our daily work, the profession is all about grace. Helping people is a noble calling. It is a privilege to serve my fellow human beings. Fifteen years has seen many ups and downs at the workplace, but I have enjoyed serving the many patients who come into my care, and have prayed for the souls of those who were on the brink of death. — Katherine Soh

I think about entrance and exits. I think about dialogue. But most of all I think about voice - all character development in theatre is done through voice. And as I wrote my debut novel "The Big Fear", I thought about narrative voice with every line. — Andrew Case

The truth is, time marches on and you have two choices: You move forward, come what may, and you experience all the sour and sweet things that fly at you from around corners, or you sit still. Don't sit still. — Suzanne Palmieri

My first book was the most successful debut novel in the U.K. ever and every one of my books has reached number one in the U.K. Clearly the British know brilliance when they see it. — Kathy Reichs

The boarding school memoir or novel is an enduring literary subgenre, from 1950s classics such as The Catcher in the Rye to Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep. Doust's recognisably Australian contribution to the genre draws on his own experiences in a West Australian boarding school in this clever, polished, detail-rich debut novel. From the opening pages, the reader is wholly transported into the head of Jack Muir, a sensitive, sharp-eyed boy from small-town WA who is constantly measured (unfavourably) against his goldenboy brother. The distinctive, masterfully inhabited adolescent narrator recalls the narrator in darkly funny coming-of-age memoir Hoi Polloi (Craig Sherborne) - as does the juxtaposition of stark naivety and carefully mined knowingness.' - Bookseller+Publisher — Jon Doust

Somehow, the pain and rage and confusion of the past eighteen years dissolves until all that is left is this one perfect moment; unscripted, unedited, it's ours and ours alone. — Heather Demetrios

Cormoran Strike is an amazing creation and I can't wait for his next outing. Strike is so instantly compelling that it's hard to believe this is a debut novel. I hope there are plenty more Cormoran Strike adventures to come. A beautifully written debut novel introducing one of the most unique and compelling detectives I've come across in years. — Mark Billingham

I mostly believe, deep in my bones, that life is very simply beyond description; regardless of what one makes of it, life always spills over the parameters of how anyone has chosen to define it. — Cyril Wong

Screenwriter Flacco nicely evokes the aftermath of San Francisco's 1906 earthquake in his fiction debut, a novel of suspense. — William Bernhardt

This dazzling, unput-downable debut novel proves beyond a doubt that Dan Wells has the gift. His teenage protagonist is as chilling as he is endearing. More John Wayne Cleaver, please. — F. Paul Wilson

Stuart Rojstaczer writes with enormous wit, style and empathy, and The Mathematician's Shiva is a big-hearted, rollickingly funny novel that's impossible to put down. A tremendous debut. — Molly Antopol

In How to Be an American Housewife Margaret Dilloway creates an irresistible heroine. Shoko is stubborn, contrary, proud, a wonderful housewife and full of deeply conflicted feelings. I wanted to shake her, even as I was cheering her on, and this cunningly structured novel allowed me to do both. It also took me on two intricate journeys, from post-war Japan and the shadow of Nagasaki to contemporary California, and from motherhood to daughterhood and back again. A profound and suspenseful debut. — Margot Livesey

Look at Andrew Roe's The Miracle Girl from one angle and you'll see an incisive and insightful critique of America at the millennium and today, investigating where we put our faith and why. The greatest of Roe's achievements in this captivating debut is a memorable feat of intense empathy. Roe inhabits characters who are desperate to believe and reveals to us their needs and wounds and hopes, and he does so with kindness, generosity, and wisdom. This is a novel about what it means to be human, to seek connection and hope and maybe even transcendence in the world around us. — Doug Dorst

Intricately plotted, beautifully paced, The Music of the Spheres is an elegant historical novel rich in detail, at times Dickensian in its description of London. Elizabeth Redfern has made an exciting debut. — Martha Grimes

David Cristofanos debut novel captures the essence of the human spirit, and delivers a story that is simultaneously heartwarming and heartbreaking. — Brad Listi

Hughes' debut novel, At Dawn, follows a former All-American wrestler, and is there any better metaphor for contemporary American life? We're all wrestling, tussling with the economy, no jobs, doing the best we can. Hughes doesn't flinch from the tough existential questions. He embraces them. — Joshua Mohr

You can't screw up your own suicide and then expect the universe to give you presents wrapped in the skin of a wonderful boy. That's just not the way it works. — Heather Demetrios

You don't know the art of eating ice cream." I mumbled.
"And what's that?" He said sarcastically.
"That is, to enjoy every single spoonful, lick it thrice to completely clean it off, then take another spoonful, and so on. You know what's sweet time? That is called sweet time. Next time, do it and enjoy the heavenly taste of it. It will increase its deliciousness by tenfold." I grinned at him. — Zainab T. Khan

I don't like seeing myself on camera." But that's not it
that sounds shallow, like I'm worried I'll look fat or something. "It's like somebody is walking on my grave. TV immortalizes you. The episodes are what my family would watch if I died. — Heather Demetrios

Knowing, above all, that I would come looking, and find what he had left for me, all that remained of The Jungle Book in the pocket of his doctor's coat, that folder-up, yellowed page torn from the back of the book, with a bristle of thick, coarse hairs clenced inside. Galina, says my grandfather's handwriting, above and below a child's drawing of the tiger, who is curved like the blade of a scimitar across the page. Galina, it says, and that is how I know to find him again, in Galina, in the story he hadn't told me but perhaps wished he had. — Tea Obreht

I remember being little and wondering if I smoothed this line away would I be able to see inside you, like it was a door or some kind of opening to your insides. Dumb, huh?"
"Sweet," he said, softly. "Little girl sweet. Never dumb."
Her eyes traveled up to his and locked there.
"When I got older I wondered what it would be like to kiss it. — Peggy Jaeger

A psychologically engrossing novel about the homes we make-in our houses, in our neighborhoods, and in the hearts of our loved ones. Laken takes on that great unspoken American subject-class-and does so with frankness, acuity and surpassing feeling. DREAM HOUSE is a memorable debut novel from a fully mature talent. — Peter Ho Davies

And on bad days, when his aura of sadness blazed like an alarm he couldn't turn off, I felt like I was doing everything wrong. — Lindsey Frydman

The past is past. You tried to kill yourself. So what? I humped a couch in season twelve. We all have our skeletons. — Heather Demetrios

But seriously Holden, what is the island called now?"

"Sentosa," Holden said romantically and with a flourish of his unoccupied left hand.

"Sentosa. Sounds romantic all right. So this is the progress you're talking about? — Robert Yeo

Humanity's debut novel you could say. Love, sex, blood, and tears. A journey to find eternal life. To escape death. It was written over four thousand years ago on clay tablets by people who tilled the mud and rarely lived past forty. It's survived countless wars, disasters, and plagues, and continues to fascinate to this day, because here I am, in the midst of modern ruin, reading it. — Isaac Marion

Love can give you the most exhilarating wonderful highs at times ...
... Then there will be dives that will take all you have just to hold on ...
Quote on the Title Page of Love TORN Asunder — Elizabeth Funderbirk

Everybody knows, nobody's talking - from LIE
debut novel coming September 1st from St. Martin's Press — Caroline Bock

For her and Nurul merely to share a meal cooked in their own kitchen was a triumph; to wake up together each morning a luxury. — Jolene Tan

In his exciting debut novel, Jerel Law transports readers to a place where supernatural forces of good and evil collide. Young readers will be entertained and inspired by Spirit Fighter. I heartily recommend it. — Robert Whitlow

If my sister were a character in a Victorian drama, she would be the snobbish rich girl with a penchant for talking shit about everyone behind their fan. — Heather Demetrios

The Society of North American Magic Realists welcomes its newest, most dazzling member, Louis Maistros. His debut novel is a thing of wonder, unlike anything in our literature. It startles. It stuns. It stupefies. No novel since CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES has done such justice to New Orleans. If Franz Kafka had been able to write like Peter Straub, this might have been the result. — Donald Harington

Above The Thunder is passionate, wise, and piercingly beautiful. Readers drawn to books with rich, memorable characters and contemporary stories will find this remarkable debut novel not only irresistible but impossible to put down. — Tony Ardizzone

Philip Galanes makes his debut with a novel that is both heartbreaking and deftly comic, the story of a young man struggling with his most primitive desires
wanting and needing. It is a novel about the complex relationships between parents and children, a story of loss and of our unrelenting need for acknowledgment, to be seen as who we are. And in the end it is simply a love story for our time. — A.M. Homes

As an editor, I read Charlotte Rogan's amazing debut novel, 'The Lifeboat,' when it was still in manuscript. I read it in one night, and I really wanted my company to publish it, but we lost it to another house. It's such a wonderful combination of beautiful writing and suspenseful storytelling. — Karen Thompson Walker

Magical, yes, but THE SNOW CHILD is also satisfyingly realistic in its depiction of 1920s homestead-era Alaska and the people who settled there, including an older couple bound together by resilient love. Eowyn Ivey's poignant debut novel grabbed me from the very first pages and made me wish we had more genre-defying Alaska novels like this one. Inspired by a fairy tale, it nonetheless contains more depth and truth than so many books set in this land of extremes. — Andromeda Romano-Lax

See, I didn't turn into a monster. You're safe here with me, Daisy. I control that part because I don't allow it like he does. — Nancy Glynn

He looks like the kind of boy who would jump trains, strum guitars, and pass a joint. — Heather Demetrios

The ambition of 'Ten Thousand Saints,' Eleanor Henderson's debut novel about a group of unambitious lost souls, is beautiful. In nearly 400 pages, Henderson does not hold back once: she writes the hell out of every moment, every scene, every perspective, every fleeting impression, every impulse and desire and bit of emotional detritus. — Stacey D'Erasmo

I have long admired the visceral storytelling and moral complexity of John Vaillant's brilliant non-fiction about humankind's tragically ambivalent relationship with the natural world. Now he brings his abundant literary gifts to a debut novel set in a very real borderland in which human beings are themselves treated like animals. The Jaguar's Children is a beautifully rendered lament for an imperiled culture and the brave lives that would preserve it. You should read it. — John Burnham Schwartz

Anthony Ryan is a new fantasy author destined to make his mark on the genre. His debut novel, Blood Song, certainly has it all: great coming of age tale, compelling character, and a fast-paced plot. If his first book is any indication of things to come, then all fantasy readers should rejoice as a new master storyteller has hit the scene. — Michael J. Sullivan

Hitchcock's debut novel introduces 14-year-old Jessie Pearl, who endures more than her fair share of hardships, beginning with the death of her mother. Opening in 1922, the story follows the daily activities on the family's North Carolina tobacco farm. ...Hitchcock's story is gently and lovingly written, with elements drawn from her own family history. Its detailed honesty about the particular struggles of the period, especially for strong women (Maude, a no-nonsense midwife, is particularly memorable), is significant.
- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY — Publishers Weekly

Edan Lepucki sets her debut novel, 'California,' somewhere in the 2060s. The nearness of this era helps make her vision both more discomfiting and more credible. — Amity Gaige

Beneath Albright's office, the colliery sprawled across the hillside, red brick buildings scattered as though hurled from a great height, a hotchpotch of mismatched structures spattered on the valley floor. At the bottom stood the winding house, wheels motionless, above it, the engineering sheds and workshops, canteen and bath house. All lay empty. No buzz and hum of machinery. No voices raised in laughter or dispute. Gwyn found it unsettling: his lads had been out a month and a half and already the power had drained from the place. In the stillness, he caught the echo of footsteps. The crunch of boots on gravel. Generations of long-gone Pritchards clocking in and out. He was bound to Blackthorn by the coal that clogged his veins and by a bond of duty. The strike left him as diminished as his pit, day dragging after idle day. — Kit Habianic

The Eleventh Plague hits disturbingly close to home An excellent, taut debut novel. — Suzanne Collins

A great word becomes a great sentence with great meaning from great writers who have a great imagination and who enchant greatness — Mark Peter Evans

We at the Christian Writers Guild couldn't be more proud of Brandy Vallance. Let her debut novel transport you to an entirely fresh time and place where you'll soon forget you're turning pages and find yourself riveted to the destinies of characters who'll leave a lasting impression on your heart. — Jerry B. Jenkins

English. That was where I met him. — Andrew Koh

There are only two things you'll ever need to know about me, Farin - and you should know them well. I'm very smart, and I'm very rich. — Heather O'Brien

Even Mom doesn't understand how being in front of a camera all the time twists and warps you. How one second it makes you feel unbelievably alive and the next publicly strips you down until all that's left is one big question mark. — Heather Demetrios

Reaching deep into the heart of the reader, Cindy Woodsmall pens a beautifully lyrical story in her debut novel When the Heart Cries. — Tamera Alexander

She has never before given herself over to anyone-she'd always parceled herself out little by little. This bit for Samuel, some small part for her father, barely anything for Henry. She'd never put all of herself in just one place. It felt too risky. Because her great and constant fear all these years was that if anyone ever came to know all of her--the real her, the true deep essential Faye--they would not find enough stuff there to love. Hers was not a soul large enough to nourish another. — Nathan Hill

Though the heart may be cracked wide, pain can still seep in. — Rachelle Rea Cobb

The air between them began to settle into a silence. Awkward, yet softly exciting. Like an unexpected snow day. — Suzanne Palmieri

The Ordinary is Extraordinary ..." my motto for life as a writer/Mom/woman — Lisa Barr

I'd morphed, altered, nipped and tucked away bits of my personality for so long, I no longer recognized myself. I feared that one day, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to identify myself. I'd be forever trapped in an image of another's making, and there would be no escape because I would have forgotten to want to escape.
Nida — Faiqa Mansab

This night felt like a last hurrah, like we could blaze our brightest, at the apex of our insane adolescence. This was our Mardi Gras before the dark days of Lent. — Heather Demetrios

Timebound is her debut novel. — Rysa Walker

Because one thing she's learned through all this is that if a new beginning is really new; it will feel like a crisis. Any real change should make you feel, at first, afraid; — Nathan Hill

Collies, coffee and, murder most foul! — Stella St. Claire

Red glowing eyes... No one could see her. No one could hear her. No one was coming to save her. Because Death had come sooner than expected. — Humairaa Anseline

Gritty and witty, The Chicago Way is done the classic Raymond Chandler Way. Harvey's taut plot, snappy prose, and memorable characters make this debut novel a real winner. — Kathy Reichs

I had been a student in Vienna, and one of the neat little things I had found out was about that zoo. It was a good debut novel for me to have published. I was 26 or 27 when it was published. I already had a kid and would soon have a second. — John Irving

Hate is a lot like love. It's warm and fills you up until every part of you is tingling to release it. — Heather Demetrios

A fantastic, gleeful, chrome-plated-slick debut of a novel. In Jonathan Chase, Markham has created the perfect cliche-shattering super spy while honoring the progenitors. Dangerously sharp, and genuinely fun-and very, very, very smart. I want more books like this. I want more books from the mind of Mr. Markham! — Greg Rucka

Waiting for the Electricity is a wildly original and ambitious debut, a novel that tackles cultural clashes with satirical hilarity. I haven't read a first novel this promising since The Confederacy of Dunces. — Jill Ciment