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" 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. "

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" I wanted to talk to a lot of women about their experiences along the path to motherhood - or along the path to not being a mother. "

Sheila Heti

Women

Motherhood

Mother

" Sometimes you can't write a novel for weeks and weeks, but it's good for your self-esteem to work on something else. "

" When I was younger, I think that I felt like I could only live one way, and I had to figure out which of those one ways it was going to be. I have no anxiety about making the wrong decision. "

" I've written about women's lives, and I just want to write about them from being a woman. I don't need feminism on top of that when I'm writing. "

" 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 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. "

" Writing, for me, when I'm writing in the first-person, is like a form of acting. So as I'm writing, the character or self I'm writing about and my whole self - when I began the book - become entwined. It's soon hard to tell them apart. The voice I'm trying to explore directs my own perceptions and thoughts. "

" I don't wear shoes that are going to give me any pain. I just cannot do that. "

Sheila Heti

Going

Pain

" I don't think 'Motherhood' is a map for women. I would never say that it's a template for every woman in response to her biology. "

" I wished to have the time to put together a world view, but there was never enough time, and also, those who had it seemed to have had it from a very young age; they didn't begin at forty. "

" 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. "

" It's so weird how our existence hinges on just absolute crazy chance, but it feels so essential. It's like, 'Nothing would be here if you weren't here,' because you are the centre of your universe. "

" Nonfiction, to me, feels like an argument, whereas a novel is like a series of questions. "

Sheila Heti

Feels

Argument

" 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. "

" I didn't study English literature - I studied philosophy at university - so Kierkegaard, Nietzsche - these people are among the most important writers to me. So my interest is in the big questions more than it is in storytelling. "

Sheila Heti

Important

Study

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

" 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. "

" My feminism is just part of my being - a part of my understanding of the world. "

" Laurie Simmons began showing her photographs in New York in the late '70s: black-and-white and then candy-colored scenarios with plastic dolls in 1950s-style domestic interiors. "

" Today, I defined 'sentimental' to myself as a feeling about the idea of a feeling. "

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

Sheila Heti

Vulnerable

Make

" Raffi Cavoukian was born in Cairo in 1948 and moved with his Armenian parents to Toronto when he was 10. "

" An artist's love for what they create is what creates love. "

" Trying to live the image of the life which you have in your head... it's really hard not to do that, but I do think maybe it's cheating. "

" 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 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. "

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

" Some of my favorite experiences of art are when I am there but my attention has wandered. I think stimulation is overrated, and persistent stimulation is exhausting. You sometimes have to be banal, tedious: make the rhythm go soft and slow, give the mind a rest. "

" I see friends of mine who have kids and continue to do their art. It's deeply impressive. I can't even fit an Amazon return into the day. It's been sitting on my desk for two weeks. "

" I've always had individual friends, but I didn't find the people I wanted to learn from as an adult until my mid-twenties. "