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" Somewhere in our cultural subconscious, we crave these figures that are big and strong and unassailable, like masculine fortresses. It's like how the 9/11 firemen were venerated. "

Lynn Coady

How

Strong

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" I know what the Giller nominee effect is, but we'll see what the next level is. "

Lynn Coady

See

Next Level

" Guys know how to read each other's signals. They know how to telegraph love for one another without throwing their arms around one another. "

" I guess you could say I'm 'kind' to my past books in the way you might be kind to an old boyfriend you still quite like and bear no grudge against but with whom have absolutely no interest in getting back together. "

" Keep a copy of 'Islands in the Stream' by Ernest Hemingway on the left hand side of your desk. Keep Fitzgerald's 'The Crack Up' on the right. When you get stuck, pick them up and pretend that they are having a fight, like you used to do with your GI Joes. "

" I'm no atheist - I'm lazy. I really do like hassle-free Sunday mornings. I have a problem with organized religion, so I've simply opted out. Live and let live, I figure. "

" My dad was a real man's man, and so were my brothers, in a small town where hockey is king. It's a masculine culture. It made me really attentive to what it meant to be a guy. "

Lynn Coady

Culture

Small

" It's the typical mid-life crisis kind of thing, where you just stop and wonder, 'Should I go back to university and get a law degree?' I kind of looked around me and thought, 'What kind of idiot am I that I've just spent the last 10 years writing novels? Financially, I'm pretty much where I was when I was 28.' "

Lynn Coady

Writing

Law

" A novelist's sense that he or she is 'above' a certain genre mainly comes out of the notion that the genre is somehow a debased version of his or her preferred form. "

" The one thing I've always done as an author is talk to my publicists. Because they have all the best stories - and they have all the dirt on other, more famous and important writers. They're not supposed to talk about it, but sometimes you can get awesome little tidbits from them. "

" In the late sixties, when revolution and upheaval were everywhere, feminists were ridiculed for focusing on housework. "

" I went into the world confident my tea training would open many doors. And I did particularly well with the Irish and fellow Nova Scotians over 60. But this only got me so far. It took a long time to cultivate the tricks of easy social interaction. "

Lynn Coady

World

Time

" Readers who claim a preference for short-form over long often tell me it's because they don't have time to commit to a book-length chunk of writing. "

Lynn Coady

Over

Writing

" One does not become an atheist out of a desire for hassle-free Sunday mornings. People come to atheism because they have a problem with organized religion - usually a problem they consider to be of moral urgency. "

" When writing sex scenes, there is often no pleasing anyone, except perhaps the writer herself. "

" There was a time when I thought dudes had friendship all figured out. The focus on eating things in front of giant screens, pretending to punch one another, competing over who can utter the grossest and most profane personal insults imaginable - this struck me as the very apex of human social exchange. "

" A dominant misconception among believers is that their atheist brethren are a slavering pack of hell-bound debauchees, gleefully wining and wenching their way through life while loudly professing their amorality. "

" I don't even like to cry in private. "

Lynn Coady

Cry

Even

" I started out in the journalism program, but I got kicked out. I wasn't very good at it. It wasn't where I wanted to be ultimately. "

" You don't need to have Asperger's to feel bewildered in a culture that relies so heavily on inconsequential chit-chat to grease the wheels of day-to-day life. "

" No one expects the doormat to stand upright, shake itself off, and amble down the street to seek its own happiness. "

" That's what fascinates me about these writers' retreats: You're in these small spaces with small groups of people, and all of the sudden, the spotlight is shining on you harder than it normally is. "

" True adulthood occurs the moment we grasp that the people who raised us do not exist solely for our comfort and reassurance. From that point on, the steady stream of unconditional love and support we've expected from them all our lives has to flow both ways. "

" I even felt like I liked guys better than women - that men were relevant and women weren't. It took me a while to realize I'd been socialized to have a slighting view of my own gender. "

Lynn Coady

Gender

Women

" What I've learned is that you get better at writing by writing, and that 'youthful energy' will only get you so far. "

" Now, as a writer, the whole world is your nail polish display, and what's more, you can help yourself. A thrilling, colourful array of gorgeous human peculiarity revolves before your eyes, and you still can't quite believe it's all yours for the taking. "

" It's a moral absolute: If you are going to make a human being, you have a fundamental responsibility to that person - to honestly disclose exactly who they are and where they come from. "

" When revising, consider whether you have written anything that will hurt or offend a member of your immediate family. If the answer is no, go back and add something. "

" The novel, as a genre, was once considered a diversion every bit as frivolous as Facebook, but over the years, we've managed to convince ourselves that reading fiction is as important to our mental digestion as fresh fruits and vegetables are to the processes that take place a little further down. "

" Here it is, 2011, and I feel zero shame when I tell you I would like to marry my smartphone. It is a handful of pure delight. "

" Dating, like almost every other male-female interaction in present-day society, is based on outmoded and unequal social roles and expectations. "