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" You're meant to have an unhappy childhood to be a writer, but there's a lot to be said for a very happy one that just lets you get on with it. "
Emma Donoghue
Childhood
Unhappy
Said
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" I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless. "
Emma Donoghue
Always
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Her
" I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga. "
Emma Donoghue
I Am
Sports
Nervous
" Every parent has those moments where they look at their child and think, 'There's a demon in those eyes and no one can see it but me!' "
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Parent
Think
Child
" I remember a period where my publisher said to me, 'Look, your historical work is selling much better than your contemporary work, so please give us more historicals.' "
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Remember
Me
Better
" I've been writing full-time since I was 23. "
Emma Donoghue
Been
Writing
Full-Time
" I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was. "
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Success
More
" Any parent knows how to be the ideal parent. "
Emma Donoghue
Knows
Ideal
Any
" A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places. "
Emma Donoghue
Always
Situation
Places
" I have never been depressed or thrown a plate, which I attribute to the cathartic effects of writing books about people whose lives are more grueling than mine. "
Emma Donoghue
Never
People
Books
" I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework. "
Emma Donoghue
Child
Feel
Doing
" I'm constantly saying, 'I read a fascinating article in 'The New Yorker'... ' I say it so often that sometimes I think I have nothing interesting to say myself, I merely regurgitate 'The New Yorker.' "
Emma Donoghue
Interesting
Myself
Say
" It's painful to consider anything but writing. "
Emma Donoghue
Writing
Anything
Consider
" I come out of an academic background, and I'm aware that what I'm doing is simultaneously research and fiction. I want to meet both those obligations. "
Emma Donoghue
Meet
Background
Want
" Identity politics are wearisome; you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer. "
Emma Donoghue
Group
Go
Identity
" For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have. "
Emma Donoghue
Parent
You
Emotions
" One thing I like about historical fiction is that I'm not constantly focusing on me, or people like me; you're obliged to concentrate on lives that are completely other than your own. "
Emma Donoghue
You
Historical
Like
" The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side. "
Emma Donoghue
Someone
Life
Great
" I love it when novels contain a broad cast of characters, including queer ones. "
Emma Donoghue
Queer
Characters
Cast
" You know, plenty of people headed off to Canada or America on the basis of government information, propaganda campaigns. Often you'd go off with a brochure in hand and you'd turn up and it wouldn't be like that at all. "
Emma Donoghue
America
People
Information
" I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way. "
Emma Donoghue
Off
Order
Writing
" You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well. "
Emma Donoghue
Success
Well
You
" I'm a huge planner, more and more so as the years go by. "
Emma Donoghue
Go
Years
Planner
" Before I had kids, I thought you should never lie to a kid. But now I've had them, I realize you almost lie to them by definition, because if you're trying to summarize something for your 1-year-old, you put it in very simple terms. You only gradually complicate the explanation as they get older. "
Emma Donoghue
Lie
Now
Simple
" I think it would be a shame for any writer to let their publishers in any way corral them into a single genre. "
Emma Donoghue
Think
Shame
Genre
" You know the way there are two kinds of actors - the De Niro kind who's always De Niro, and then somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself eerily? Well, I aim to be the Daniel Day-Lewis kind of writer. I don't have a house style. "
Emma Donoghue
Kind
House
Always
" I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person's point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I'm not naturally good at strong plot. "
Emma Donoghue
Time
Gift
Character
" I'm not at all snobby about book prizes and how they pollute the world of literature. Just like with the Olympics, a little bit of competition gets people truly engrossed in the business of literature. "
Emma Donoghue
Business
Book
Competition
" Kids delight in 'magical thinking', whether in the form of the Tooth Fairy or the saints: whether you see these as comforting lies or eternal verities, they are part of how we help kids make sense of the world. "
Emma Donoghue
See
World
Thinking
" I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it. "
Emma Donoghue
Down
Interesting
Me
" Ah yes, the paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence. "
Emma Donoghue
Innocence
Know
Off