Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" What I've learned is that you get better at writing by writing, and that 'youthful energy' will only get you so far. "
Lynn Coady
Energy
Will
Better
Related Quotes:
" I really do think of it in moral terms. I think that we can't kid ourselves that the storytelling impulse is innocent and does nothing but bring good to the world. "
Lynn Coady
Moral
Think
Kid
" We are all somebody's children, and when we're in pain, we regress, instinctively looking to our parents to make everything better. "
Lynn Coady
Parents
Better
Children
" 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. "
Lynn Coady
Dominant
Through
Way
" This is not necessarily the answer people want, but ultimately, I think writing is an amoral process. Your ultimate responsibility is to the truth of the story you're trying to tell. "
Lynn Coady
People
Writing
Truth
" Sometimes I pine for the era of Miss Manners, when there were hard and fast rules dictating a well-bred individual's behaviour in any given situation. "
Lynn Coady
Sometimes
Rules
Hard
" 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. "
Lynn Coady
Life
Culture
Feel
" 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. "
Lynn Coady
You
Moral
Come
" I just have to trust that the story is going to shake out in such a way that's going to be palatable to readers. "
Lynn Coady
Story
Trust
Way
" You know the actor's nightmare is getting up onstage and not being prepared? I think the writer's nightmare is giving a reading and somebody standing up and saying, 'That's not your story.' "
Lynn Coady
Think
Story
Saying
" It makes me proud not just to be a Canadian writer but to be a Canadian, to live in a country where we treat our writers like movie stars. "
Lynn Coady
Me
Stars
Treat
" I don't even like to cry in private. "
Lynn Coady
Cry
Like
Even
" Grownups, as a rule, should always be ready to pay for their own meals - or else ready to graciously accept their date's insistence on paying. The point is, one doesn't sit there batting one's eyelashes, fully expecting someone else to claim the bill. "
Lynn Coady
Accept
Someone
Sit
" I think authors like me are always struggling with the idea that they should have a brand and a Facebook author page and they should get Twitter accounts. I don't know what to do with them. "
Lynn Coady
Always
Think
Page
" I would just randomly blurt out things like, 'What if a man showed up today and was carrying an umbrella, but it wasn't raining?' Eventually, people started to call me weird. "
Lynn Coady
People
Man
Weird
" When you're not sure your anger is justified, the thing to do is ask yourself exactly where it's coming from. "
Lynn Coady
Coming
Anger
You
" I think, as writers, our first responsibility is to writing an honest story. Tell the story you want to tell, without pulling your punches. "
Lynn Coady
Writing
Think
Story
" 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. "
Lynn Coady
Writing
Know
Mind
" I come from a working-class background, and I thought I had to be studying something that would get me a job. "
Lynn Coady
Studying
Background
Job
" 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. "
Lynn Coady
Just
Society
Always
" 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. "
Lynn Coady
Heaven
Look
Work
" The creative process taps into our deepest subconscious, and we are each of us sex-crazed - products of a shame-based Judeo-Christian culture that has irrevocably warped us all to varying degrees. "
Lynn Coady
Creative
Process
Us
" 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. "
Lynn Coady
Back
Will
You
" We like long-form narrative journalism, and we feel there aren't enough high-profile outlets in Canada running the kind of stories we want to showcase - long, meaty, thoughtful, investigative. "
Lynn Coady
Long
Thoughtful
Enough
" I've never understood people who treat their loved ones worse and with less respect than they would a total stranger or minor acquaintance. "
Lynn Coady
Loved
Never
People
" No one expects the doormat to stand upright, shake itself off, and amble down the street to seek its own happiness. "
Lynn Coady
Street
Own
Off
" 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
More
Relationships
" The process of writing a story isn't about fair. It's about getting to the heart of your story, getting to the truth of it. It transcends ideals of fair and unfair, right and wrong. "
Lynn Coady
Heart
Process
Story
" 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. "
Lynn Coady
Never
Story
Always
" 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. "
Lynn Coady
Fraternity
Practice
Moments
" We thought we'd name the magazine for the number of bridges within Edmonton's city limits. We thought this number was 18. Much later, we learned that the number is actually 21. But we didn't like the sound of that so much. "
Lynn Coady
Bridges
Thought
Name