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All Quotes by author - Laurie Graham
" As one ages, eventually, no matter what regime you've followed, no matter how fiercely you've fought the fight, good health becomes harder to maintain. It may disappear overnight or simply dwindle, but with every year that passes, the odds shorten. "
Fight
Good
Good Health
" As well as writing novels and doing short-order journalism, I am also the full-time carer of my husband, who has Alzheimer's. Each day feels like a race that must be run. "
Writing
Run
I Am
" Being eye candy always was a short-term career, and here's the reason. The world finds young women more attractive than old women because youthfulness signals fertility. "
World
Young
Candy
" Caring burns a lot of fuel - psychological and physical, too, if any lifting is involved. The energy tank is soon emptied, and the toll caring takes is well documented. It's called carer burn-out. "
Energy
Caring
Well
" Characters develop as the book progresses, but any that start to bore me end up in the wastepaper basket. In real life, we may have to put up with tedious people, but not in novels. "
End
Life
Me
" Childhood doesn't have to be perfect, and children don't have to be beautiful. From a bit of grit may grow a pearl, and if pearl production doesn't materialise, the outcome will still be preferable to the shallowness of vanity. "
Perfect
Beautiful
Childhood
" Dementia is quite unlike cancer or heart disease or any of those other conditions where you bargain with God for a cure or even just a bit more time. "
You
Dementia
Heart
" Even professional, paid carers aren't always models of saintly behaviour - and they know they can knock off at the end of their shift to go home, take an uninterrupted shower, and have a normal conversation with someone. "
Home
End
Professional
" Far more than dreading ending up in a care home myself, I dread having to put my husband in one. "
Husband
Ending
Care
" I almost always use first person voice in my novels. It has its limitations, but it gives a sense of immediacy that's hard to create with an anonymous, all-seeing narrator. "
Person
Create
Always
" I'd like to see my grandchildren climb trees, not stand under them. I'd like to see them learn to make bread and brown it over a fire using my toasting fork. "
Grandchildren
Climb
Stand
" I hate to think I ever make my husband frightened or unhappy, but I suspect I do. "
Hate
Unhappy
Think
" I have a magpie mind, by which I mean I see and hear little things - photos, fragments of conversation - and store them away for future use. "
See
Little Things
Mean
" I have an idea for a story, and if the idea is going to work, then one of the characters steps forward, and I hear her voice telling the story. This is what has happened with all the books I've written in the first person. "
Work
Story
Her
" I have but one rule at my table. You may leave your cabbage, but you'll sit still and behave until I've eaten mine. "
Leave
Your
Table
" I know my parents loved me - they certainly did everything they could for me - but displays of affection were kept on a distinctly low flame. "
Loved
Low
Flame
" I love working fictional characters into a piece of history. It plays to my strengths, which are characterization and dialogue, and assists me in my admitted weakness, plot. "
History
Love
Working
" I'm married to an American, and although we live in Europe, I think of myself as an honorary American. "
Think
Myself
Europe
" I'm married to an American, so I guess that has changed my perspective on the subjects I can write about. "
I Can
American
Write
" I'm thankful my parents obliged me to live with the unvarnished truth: I might not have been a looker, but I was a better speller than the prettiest girl in my class, and I was funnier, too. "
Truth
Me
Parents
" In grief, after even the happiest of relationships, we go over things again and again. "
Relationships
Grief
Go
" In the Seventies, my children played in the street, read politically incorrect stories, ate home-cooked food and occasional junk and, yes, were sometimes smacked. "
Sometimes
Children
Street
" I speak pretty fluent American, though I do so with a strong British accent, and I love America: The scale and the variety of it are astonishing to someone not born there, and I'm convinced that its energy and generosity have somehow rubbed off on me and affected my writing. For the better. "
Me
Strong
Generosity
" I think my mother was baffled by me. We were polar opposites. She was shy and retiring. I was over-fond of the limelight. Many times in my life, I was conscious of embarrassing her with my carrying on. "
Mother
Me
Life
" It was the Victorians who covered the piano legs and drew a heavy curtain over what a lady got up to in her boudoir. "
Over
Lady
Legs
" I've always jealously guarded my feminine mystique. I've been married twice, and neither of my husbands has ever seen me put my face on. "
Seen
Twice
Always
" I've been lucky enough to travel widely. When you're based in Europe, it's very easy to go to Madrid or Budapest for the weekend. I also lived in Italy for ten years and now live in Ireland. "
You
Enough
Live
" I've never minded solitude. For a writer, it's a natural condition. But caring for a dementia sufferer leads to a peculiar kind of loneliness. "
Caring
Solitude
Loneliness
" I was fascinated by the culture clash between England and America in the 1950s. My first memories are of being a girl in those post-war years when things were really pretty grim. It wasn't like that in America, which was real boom time. "
America
Culture
Girl
" My early novels were very understated and English. Fourteen years ago, I met and married my American husband, and as I learned more about his background and culture, I became interested in using American voices. "
Husband
More
Early
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