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" I don't think about the reader when I'm writing, but I do when I'm editing, of course. For instance, I self-consciously didn't want to do anything to increase the divide between mothers and nonmothers - I think that divide is so horrible and destructive and unnecessary. "

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" Writing plays, I've always felt a little like I'm guessing - less sure of what's good and what's not good. I think that's because it's not a complete work of art. "

Sheila Heti

Think

Work

Always

" Raffi is arguably the world's most famous children's singer. "

" Everyone has to put clothes on in the morning, and it's interesting to see how much people's personal histories come into that decision. "

" There is a kind of sadness in not wanting the things that give so many other people their life's meaning. There can be sadness at not living out a more universal story - the supposed life cycle. "

" I really enjoyed the process of 'Women in Clothes,' but there's no way I would have done that again. It felt more like being an editor than a writer, and I longed to write again. "

" To me, something that's beautiful in terms of a book is something that lives inside the reader both as a discrete and complete thing, but also something that seeps out into their life and thoughts. "

" A line drawn with love can make us as vulnerable as what the line depicts. "

Sheila Heti

Vulnerable

Make

" I feel like every single time I've published a book, there's some little light in me that goes out. I've seen the way people can misunderstand or misinterpret things, if not maliciously, then without a lot of sensitivity. "

Sheila Heti

People

Time

" When you're writing, I think a big part of writing comes out of an attempt to understand yourself. You're dealing with emotions and thoughts that are native to you. So that probably winds up in your characters. "

" I have this memory of being 15 years old, sitting with a friend on the steps of a little bookstore on Bloor Street in Toronto and saying, 'I'll never take money for my writing!' I had such idealism about this idea of trading your soul for money. "

" The reason I write is because I have questions. What I don't want is for people to forget that I'm a novelist and think I'm a sociologist or something. I don't want to feel trapped into a corner where I don't belong. "

" Everyone is their own kind of poet - you can't miss it when their words are written down. "

" Growing up, I never knew that Raffi turned down celebrity endorsements, TV shows, and specials and refused to make merchandise, but it makes sense given how I think about him: My memories are limited to his voice through the record player and the album covers I stared at. "

" Usually, you don't have commitment promises in a friendship. Usually, it just grows. "

" I think making friends you can work with is a skill like any other, developing those particular kinds of intimacies. They're intimacies like any other, but they grow in a definite direction, not just willy-nilly like normal friendships. "

" I believe there's a platonic ideal for every book that is written, like there's the perfect version of the book somewhere in the ether, and my job is to find what that book is through my editing. "

" It took me five or six years to write 'How Should a Person Be?' and there were many times when I felt discouraged. "

Sheila Heti

Years

Discouraged

" There's so much to learn in writing and in life, and in any particular era in one's life, it seems like a few concerns have to be dealt with at once or else something really bad could happen. Writing seems like the place to deal with those concerns. "

" I think that so many people who have children seem to want other people to have children in order to make their choice feel more essential, more inevitable, and just more right. "

" I just always try to respond to what I'm most interested in at the moment - that hasn't changed. "

" I think that part of the reason I like collaboration so much is because it's something unexpected coming in, and you have to stretch yourself to absorb it. "

" I saw what was wonderful about human companionship. Before that, I was quite content to be alone, to be a solitary wandering person, and I thought I always would be. Love changed that. "

" To add something to the world should be the question, not not adding something to the world. "

" Most fiction writers are driven to find their own 'voice,' but I am more interested in the voices of others. "

" I don't know what that line is between fiction and non-fiction that other people have in their minds, but to me, when I'm writing, it's just like whatever the next sentence should be is the next sentence. It's not this artificial division. "

" The thing I worry about is, what happens when your talent flees? Because you see that with writers sometimes: they start writing these awful books. And there's something sort of horrifying about it. "

" A woman will always be made to feel like a criminal, whatever choice she makes, however hard she tries. Mothers feel like criminals. Non-mothers do, too. "

" The thing to do when you're feeling ambivalent is to wait. "

" There's something about a woman's life choices that invites commentary, whether it's been invited or not. "

" A daughter is more difficult than a rose. "

Sheila Heti

Than

Difficult