Charles Palliser Quotes

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Charles Palliser

Profession : Novelist

Birth : December 11, 1947

I think every first-person narrator in a novel should be compromised. I prefer that word to 'unreliable.'

Charles Palliser

Living with my grandmother in Bath, I sort of thought I was living in the 19th century. My grandmother was someone who, in a way, was rather defiantly trying to live a pre-World War I existence.

Charles Palliser

For me, it would be pointless to write a novel that I knew I could complete within a specific length of time. I could do that only by repeating something I had done before, and I've never wanted to do that.

Charles Palliser

In Victorian fiction, there would be a chapter at the end devoted to righting all of the wrongs. I thought to right all of the wrongs would be too glib. I thought it would be better to lull the reader into thinking that is the way it would work, but then not to do that.

Charles Palliser

Victorian values meant brutalizing people who were often poor.

Charles Palliser

To make it interesting and worth doing, writing a novel has to be a leap into the unknown. I have to be unsure if I can write it; otherwise, I won't want to.

Charles Palliser