“The novel is a prose narrative of some length that has something wrong with it.”

“A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel reader is not prepared to give.”

“Poetry vs. ProseOne difference of courseis the length of the line.And some people supposethat prose doesn’t rhyme.But I have a theory that’s more like a question:If prose is lengthy fictionis poetry short suggestion?”

“Most contemporary novels are not really "written." They obtain what reality they have largely from an accurate rendering of the noises that human beings currently make in their daily simple needs of communication; and what part of a novel is not composed of these noises consists of a prose which is no more alive than that of a competent newspaper writer or government official. A prose that is altogether alive demands something of the reader that the ordinary novel-reader is not prepared to give.”

“It is rare and almost impossible for a novel to have only one narrator.”

“The novel is the privileged vehicle of two ways of being: narrative and freedom: to be new (novel) in a speech open to all, and to be free in a speech that never concludes.”