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" That's all small talk is - a quick way to connect on a human level - which is why it is by no means as irrelevant as the people who are bad at it insist. In short, it's worth making the effort. "

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" 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. "

Lynn Coady

People

Moment

Comfort

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

" 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. "

" Flowers are an easy, eloquent expression of love at a time when words can seem clumsy and inadequate. "

" You can't really go into TV thinking, 'Maybe I can make a few bucks doing this thing I'm only kind of interested in to support my one true love, which is prose fiction.' I think you have to love what you're doing to do it well. "

" I still find the idea of a research-heavy or historical novel daunting. That's something I've had in mind for a while: like, would you research for a year and then start writing? I sit down, and I just don't know how to write it. "

" 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

" Audience participation can often inject a dose of adrenalin into your average dial-tone literary reading, especially if a handful of audience-members are mentally unhinged, and let's face it - you can always depend on at least one crackpot at these things. "

" Occasionally, chewing over some random letter writer's dilemma, I'll find myself imagining scenarios where the problem could be sidestepped by an innocent fib or series of evasive manoeuvres. Then, I slap myself on the wrist. "

" Let's not confuse traditional behaviours with good manners. The definition of etiquette is gender neutral - it simply means we strive at all times to ensure a person in our company feels at ease. "

" Most don't live inside their heads as a writer does, having conversations with her own ideas. "

" We live in a society that celebrates familial connection above any other kind of relationship. We are shown photos of our great-grandparents and encouraged to marvel over facial similarities. We are told to take pride in our bloodlines, celebrate our ancestry. "

" We are all somebody's children, and when we're in pain, we regress, instinctively looking to our parents to make everything better. "

" Never use dogs to symbolize anything. That is ridiculous. Always ensure that any dogs are just dogs; i.e., characters in the story who happen to be dogs. "

" 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. "

" I think, as writers, our first responsibility is to writing an honest story. Tell the story you want to tell, without pulling your punches. "

" 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. "

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

" A bunch of chairs lined up in front of a podium equals school. "

" The thing about relationships is, the stronger they get, the more rapidly the realm of romance starts to overlap with the domestic. "

Lynn Coady

Stronger

Relationships

" Ever since 'Strange Heaven,' I haven't really reread my old work. Not so much because I don't like the writer I was, or because I find flaws in the writing, but more because I get so burnt out on a novel once I've finished writing, revising, editing and copy editing it that I genuinely never want to look at it again after it's gone to press. "

" One day it hit me: Truest friends, God bless their hearts, could not care less. They love you, they're pleased you're getting married and, ultimately, they don't give a fig how you get it done. "

Lynn Coady

Day

Care

" Formalized rules of manners were so great because they left no room for basic human haplessness. They allowed us to circumvent our natural boorish tendency to disregard the feelings of others. "

" Here's the thing about lingerie: The only time we see it outside our own bedrooms, it is on women who are gloriously freakish in their physical perfection. "

" I spent so many years in terror of 'making it legal' because the expression rang all too true - the wedding ritual struck me as nothing but a flowery front for the fulfilment of countless, tedious contracts and obligations. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The masterstroke of male fraternity, I believed, was the practice of never speaking of anything remotely personal or related to one's emotions. That way, no one is ever made uncomfortable. Any such awkward moments can always be dispelled with a flurry of pretend-punches. "

" I was always watching the boys and how they interacted. It comes with being a feminist, just somebody who thinks a lot about gender and how it plays out in society. "

" I avoid writing about sex out of a certainty that no matter how grown up and matter-of-fact I might try to be, there is a snickering yet nun-terrorized 12-year-old-boy inside me who would at some point be certain to grab the reins in his hairy palms. "

Lynn Coady

Matter

Certainty