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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

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Sheila Heti

Your

Representation

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

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

Sheila Heti

Feels

Argument

" 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 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. "

" Just because you are alive does not mean you have to give life. "

" 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

" I'm happy that I wrote 'How Should a Person Be?' and I wouldn't have written that exact book if we had just done the play. So much of the book is about the anxiety of failure - the failure of the play and the failure of the divorce and the failure of not feeling like a good person. "

" I just always felt whole when I was writing. I felt this kind of beautiful privacy that I never felt in any other way. I feel like there's this great fullness to being alone, and writing is a really vivid way and a really magical way of being alone. "

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" 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. "

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" Toronto is my home. It's where my family is. I think I feel an obligation to be within subway distance of the people who raised me. "