From Margaret Atwood in this podcast interview on Bookbuffet.com. When the interviewer asks about Ms. Atwood’s intentions when writing a book, she answers honesty, that it is to “strive to write a good book, if that’s not the goal [and I’m paraphrasing here], then you’re not really a writer.”
I love the simplicity in that statement. It encapsulates both the ideal of writing and the essence of the goal, but at the same time it doesn’t belie how difficult the task most certainly is for novelists.