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" 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. "

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" 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. "

Sheila Heti

Women

Way

Process

" Writing makes everything else in my life okay; it makes everything make sense. "

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

" Tove Jansson was the most successful Finnish illustrator and writer of children's books of her day, and she was the most widely read Finn abroad. She began her life as an artist early - she had her first drawing published at fifteen. "

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

" 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. "

" Women, post-menopause, go back to how they were before they started menstruating, and there's this great freedom in a woman's life when she reaches the end of that reproductive cycle, and that most women come into their own strength, the same strength they had as a girl. "

" 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. "

" Our delusions of omniscience play a role in our ideas of not only what we want but also what we want to escape. "

" I remember going over proofs of this book - my first book - back in 2001, in a bar in Toronto called the 'Victory Cafe', and thinking sadly to myself, 'This is a very good manuscript but not a very good book.' I don't know what I meant by that, but I was pretty heartbroken and sure it was true. "

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

" Every choice you make has higher stakes - or that's how it feels. "

" Only in our failures are we absolutely alone. Only in the pursuit of failure can a person really be free. Losers may be the avant garde of the modern age. "

" 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. "

" Stand-up comedians have a very important relationship to Twitter. For them, it's a place to try out material. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" One good thing about being a woman is we haven't too many examples yet of what a genius looks like. "

" Everyone's always telling themselves stories about their lives, writers or not. "

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

" I remember very vividly a little plaid dress on which my father sewed all these hanging beads, little horses and stuff. It was my favourite thing ever. I had it when I was four, and I kept it until I was 12, when I gave it to the little neighbour girl. For years, I regretted giving it to her, even though I had no use for it. "

" There's something threatening about a woman who is not occupied with children... What sort of trouble will she make? "

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

" I didn't wander into motherhood or nonmotherhood unconsciously, recklessly. I gave it due consideration. "

" 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. "

" People don't know who I am from my clothes, and they don't need to. "

" 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. "

" I'd rather that people could be both entertained and given rest while reading my book than for someone to have to put the book down to take a rest. You can't just be lighting firecrackers all the time. "

" 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. "