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" It's hard for me not to have a great deal of compassion for the last Romanov family because, really, I don't know if a politically savvy ruler would have been able to make the situation turn out much differently. "

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" I was raised by maternal grandparents who were born in 1890 and 1899, respectively. They were British subjects; George V was the cousin of the tsar. The Romanovs were very real in their household. "

Kathryn Harrison

British

Who

Real

" I wrote 'The Kiss' 12 hours a day for six months. "

" 'Madame Bovary' advanced slowly, as slowly as it would have to have, given an author who held himself accountable to each word, that it be the right word, of which there could be only one. "

" We know the seductive alchemy of art. To transform private anguish into a narrative of truth, if not beauty; to make sense where there was none; to bring order out of chaos - these are the promises art makes. "

" I admire writers who succeed at what I consider the first demand of art: that the artist vivisect himself without pity, without hesitation, determined to reveal whatever he might find. "

" Rasputin's daughter understands the revolution. She would have been an outsider, a spectator in the royal family and to the revolution. "

" When I was eleven, my mother gave me Robert K. Massie's 'Nicholas and Alexandra.' It was the first 'grownup' book I read, and I loved it. "

" I can't work out much about myself or what I see in the world around me unless I do it through writing. "

Kathryn Harrison

Writing

Myself

" Shorter work - personal essays and book reviews - allow me to take a break from working on a book, which is good for the book and for its author. "

" A lot of writers dwell on their relationships with their mothers, but only a few are worth reading. "

" I'm always sorry to finish a book, to let go of characters I love, people I've struggled to understand for years, people who evolve before me. "

" Lives that are so conspicuous have a claustrophobic feeling. Once you're in charge of running a country, you're under scrutiny all the time. That's a trap. "

" I got history solidly under my belt, reading Russian history and biographies. I couldn't change the facts. I could only play with how the people might have responded to the facts of their lives. "

" One of the things I find exciting about Joan of Arc is how clearly the story of her life reveals the creation of myth, a process in which every one of us is involved - every one of us who tells stories and all those who listen, each informing the other. "

" Joan of Arc was born 600 years ago. Six centuries is a long time to continue to mark the birth of a girl who, according to her family and friends, knew little more than spinning and watching over her father's flocks. "

" Because the kind of nonfiction I write has a plot, the events and transactions that make up a life, nonfiction offers me a break from plotting. "

Kathryn Harrison

Life

Kind

" Like all holy figures whose earthly existence separates them from the broad mass of humanity, a saint is a story, and Joan of Arc's is like no other. "

Kathryn Harrison

Other

Story

" I remember seeing my father only twice as a child for brief visits. As I grew up, I invented a father who was larger than life - stronger, smarter, more handsome, and even holier than other men. "

" The least likely of military leaders, Joan of Arc changed the course of the Hundred Years' War and of history. "

" In terms of going back and forth between fiction and nonfiction - in which I'll include memoir, biography, and true crime - is that one relieves the other. "

" I used to enjoy reading true crime, but I've discovered that I don't have the journalism nose for blood. "

" The Russian revolution is one of history's car wrecks. We do know the ending, but we continue to watch. It expresses aspects of human nature we find unacceptable. "

" Writing is how I stay sane. It's completely necessary. "

" I am perfectly capable of writing things about myself that one doesn't discuss in polite company, but I was raised by people who said you don't discuss politics, you don't discuss religion, and you certainly don't discuss people's sex lives. "

" I'll never have so compelling a figure within my embrace as Joan of Arc; there will never be a book whose last chapter is so very hard to get right. "

" I love any book that makes my family seem almost normal. "

" I admire cool renderings of hot topics. "

" By the time Joan of Arc was 16 and had proclaimed herself the virgin warrior sent by God to deliver France from her enemies, the English, she had been receiving the counsel of angels for three years. "

" Whether writing fiction or nonfiction, I've never had the sense I was 'making up' a character. It feels more like watching people reveal themselves, ever more deeply, more intimately. "

Kathryn Harrison

Never

People

" I'm not an investigative journalist; I don't track crime or police blotters. "