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" I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework. "
Emma Donoghue
Child
Feel
Doing
Related Quotes:
" Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene. "
Emma Donoghue
Chapter
Need
Planning
" I have never been depressed or thrown a plate, which I attribute to the cathartic effects of writing books about people whose lives are more grueling than mine. "
Emma Donoghue
Never
People
Books
" There's no neutral language about travel. Either travel is described in ways that make it sound kind of shallow or just glossy or silly or a way for rich people to spend their time; or else travel is often described in quite derogatory ways, you know, like immigrants swarming across borders, for instance. "
Emma Donoghue
Travel
Time
Rich
" I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was. "
Emma Donoghue
Failure
Success
More
" I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way. "
Emma Donoghue
Off
Order
Writing
" Before I had kids, I thought you should never lie to a kid. But now I've had them, I realize you almost lie to them by definition, because if you're trying to summarize something for your 1-year-old, you put it in very simple terms. You only gradually complicate the explanation as they get older. "
Emma Donoghue
Lie
Now
Simple
" I'm constantly saying, 'I read a fascinating article in 'The New Yorker'... ' I say it so often that sometimes I think I have nothing interesting to say myself, I merely regurgitate 'The New Yorker.' "
Emma Donoghue
Interesting
Myself
Say
" I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person's point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I'm not naturally good at strong plot. "
Emma Donoghue
Time
Gift
Character
" I'm not at all snobby about book prizes and how they pollute the world of literature. Just like with the Olympics, a little bit of competition gets people truly engrossed in the business of literature. "
Emma Donoghue
Business
Book
Competition
" A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places. "
Emma Donoghue
Always
Situation
Places
" I got in the habit of giving away a book as soon as I've finished it because I lived in a housing co-op at Cambridge and had no space to keep books. "
Emma Donoghue
Giving
Book
Space
" I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless. "
Emma Donoghue
Always
Strong
Her
" I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga. "
Emma Donoghue
I Am
Sports
Nervous
" Kids delight in 'magical thinking', whether in the form of the Tooth Fairy or the saints: whether you see these as comforting lies or eternal verities, they are part of how we help kids make sense of the world. "
Emma Donoghue
See
World
Thinking
" I'm a huge planner, more and more so as the years go by. "
Emma Donoghue
Go
Years
Planner
" For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have. "
Emma Donoghue
Parent
You
Emotions
" Identity politics are wearisome; you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer. "
Emma Donoghue
Group
Go
Identity
" I love it when novels contain a broad cast of characters, including queer ones. "
Emma Donoghue
Queer
Characters
Cast
" Every parent has those moments where they look at their child and think, 'There's a demon in those eyes and no one can see it but me!' "
Emma Donoghue
Parent
Think
Child
" I think it would be a shame for any writer to let their publishers in any way corral them into a single genre. "
Emma Donoghue
Think
Shame
Genre
" I've always been religiously inclined, but it doesn't come up in most of my books. "
Emma Donoghue
Up
Always
Been
" I tend to be so lost in the work that I don't notice the weather. My partner will come home and say, 'Beautiful day, wasn't it?' and I'll say, 'Was it?' as I won't have noticed the real world at all. "
Emma Donoghue
Home
Say
Weather
" I've been writing full-time since I was 23. "
Emma Donoghue
Been
Writing
Full-Time
" You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well. "
Emma Donoghue
Success
Well
You
" The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side. "
Emma Donoghue
Someone
Life
Great
" It's painful to consider anything but writing. "
Emma Donoghue
Writing
Anything
Consider
" Ah yes, the paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence. "
Emma Donoghue
Innocence
Know
Off
" You know the way there are two kinds of actors - the De Niro kind who's always De Niro, and then somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself eerily? Well, I aim to be the Daniel Day-Lewis kind of writer. I don't have a house style. "
Emma Donoghue
Kind
House
Always
" You know, plenty of people headed off to Canada or America on the basis of government information, propaganda campaigns. Often you'd go off with a brochure in hand and you'd turn up and it wouldn't be like that at all. "
Emma Donoghue
America
People
Information
" I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it. "
Emma Donoghue
Down
Interesting
Me