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" Men take much more notice of older women in France, so I might move there. I think I'm a good bet. "
Deborah Moggach
Think
Women
Older Women
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" I feel as if someone is going to come along, feel my collar and say: 'Do you really think you can get people to read books you've made up about people that don't exist?' "
Deborah Moggach
People
Think
Feel
" Writing a novel is a huge adventure; when it's going well it's more fun than fun. When it stutters to a halt put it aside. Go for a swim, go for a walk, take a week off. Don't panic or be afraid; you and your characters are in it together. Trust them to come to your rescue. "
Deborah Moggach
Together
Walk
Trust
" Nothing beats weaving through the rush-hour traffic or whizzing past the eternal gridlock that is the Strand. "
Deborah Moggach
Traffic
Nothing
Past
" A novel is utterly your own creation, a very private process. I think of a novel as a noun and a screenplay as a verb. In a novel, very little needs to happen; you can explore a person's memories and thoughts and fantasies. In a screenplay, it's all action; you must push the story on. "
Deborah Moggach
Story
Think
Thoughts
" All I want is for people, when they read my books, to feel companioned, to feel they're not alone in the world. "
Deborah Moggach
World
Alone
Books
" Discover the times when you're most creative - mornings, nights, afternoons - and clear the time to work then. Many writers find the mornings are best, and the afternoons are only good for editorial corrections, or getting the washing done. Others can only work through the night, drunk. "
Deborah Moggach
Good
Work
Time
" Psych yourself up until you're confident that the world will be interested in what happens to your characters. Confidence is key. "
Deborah Moggach
Confidence
Yourself
You
" I was never a lonely child who sat looking at the rain sliding down the window. "
Deborah Moggach
Window
Rain
Looking
" My perfect day is to work incredibly well in the morning and write something wonderful, then take the dog for a walk and go for a swim in the ladies' ponds on Hampstead Heath or work in my allotment. Then I get tarted up in the evening and go out in London to dinner or the cinema. "
Deborah Moggach
Work
Day
Dinner
" Don't start writing your novel until you know your characters very, very well. What they'd do if they saw somebody shoplifting. What they were like at school. What shoes they wear. Spend days - weeks, months - being them until they thicken up and start to breathe. "
Deborah Moggach
Writing
You
Know
" All novelists I speak to about how they started usually say it was by pulling up their roots and going to live somewhere else. You see the shape of your life at a distance. "
Deborah Moggach
Speak
You
Roots
" The traditional writer is a sensitive only child, asthmatic, who sits on the window seat watching the drops of rain slide down the pane, very introspective. I'm not inward-looking. I would never go to a shrink. I don't want to know what I'm thinking. I don't really like discussions in my family. It may be an avoidance thing. "
Deborah Moggach
Thinking
Child
Family
" You can cycle through London on the side streets, which are less polluted - and much more interesting anyway. "
Deborah Moggach
More
Interesting
London
" I'm always running my mouth off and getting myself in trouble, so I'm trying to do it less. "
Deborah Moggach
Always
Trying
Trouble
" It's not a failure if a marriage or partnership ends after a certain number of years. I think, in general, we expect too much of partners. We can't fulfil a person's every single need and, after ten years or so, many relationships wear out. If we were more philosophical about it, we wouldn't try to blame the other person or be bitter. "
Deborah Moggach
Think
Marriage
Failure
" I have a hippopotamus skull next to my bed, called Gregory. When I was six, my three sisters and I clubbed together and paid £4 for it in a junk shop. We collected owl pellets, ostrich eggs and sheep skulls for our natural history museum at home. "
Deborah Moggach
Together
Sheep
History
" I have four Rhode Island Red hens. I get two eggs from them a day. They're feathered dustbins that eat leftover food and weeds, and they're easy to look after - I throw some grain at them in the morning, take the eggs and that's it. I love the sound of clucking. "
Deborah Moggach
Day
Food
Love
" I do believe that we baby-boomers are reinventing ageing as we enter it. We're living longer and expecting more from life; the success of 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,' and other films and novels about finding love late in life, have shown that if we're up for it, there are adventures awaiting us. "
Deborah Moggach
Believe
Best
Late
" I hate fussing about in the kitchen when I have people over to supper, so I make a rich beef stew cooked in wine with carrots, sundried tomato paste and chopped chorizo sausage. "
Deborah Moggach
Rich
Wine
Hate
" I'd like to be a jazz singer, but I couldn't possibly do it; nobody would want me, anyway. "
Deborah Moggach
Want
Me
Nobody
" I've written something like 17 novels, which isn't bad, I suppose, but my father wrote 120 books, my mother 40. In comparison, I'm lazy. "
Deborah Moggach
Bad
Father
Lazy
" You need to know the characters as living, breathing people before you start the plot; otherwise, you'll feel panic, anarchy and chaos. "
Deborah Moggach
Chaos
People
Start
" I did have a go with Botox, but I couldn't move my eyebrows. I also, at one point, had that filler stuff injected, but I looked like a hamster with wodges of food in its cheeks, so I stopped that. "
Deborah Moggach
Cheeks
Point
Food
" I wanted to be a landscape architect, but I trained as a teacher; I worked in publishing; I was a waitress. "
Deborah Moggach
Landscape
Teacher
Publishing
" I've had a very lucky life because I'm of this generation where everything was possible. "
Deborah Moggach
Lucky
Where
Possible
" If people want to take their lives and are helped to do so, the punishment is tragic for all concerned. "
Deborah Moggach
People
Want
Tragic
" Living together places a huge burden on the other person to be lover, friend, entertainments manager, chef, domestic help, which is almost impossible and can lead to disappointment. If you don't live together, you spend more time with other people and ease the pressure off your lover. "
Deborah Moggach
Live
Time
Chef
" I look in the mirror expecting to be 34 and see someone who is 58. What's that all about? I haven't even thought about turning 60 yet, but so many of my friends have celebrated it by now that it's lost its terror. And I don't mind being 58; it's just such a surprise when one doesn't feel it at all. "
Deborah Moggach
Surprise
Mind
Thought
" It was very liberating, living in a foreign country, a place where everything was new and strange - the food, the customs, the climate, everything. "
Deborah Moggach
Country
Strange
Place
" I found Hollywood pretty bruising and uncreative. The executives are all in thrall to the boss, and spend their times double-guessing him or her, and trying to remember what he/she said and then applying them to the script, whether it was useful or not. They're all in fear for their jobs. "
Deborah Moggach
Her
Trying
Remember