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When I was very young, I used to share much of what I wrote with my family, but as I got older and more self-conscious, it became a much more private process.

Anita Desai

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Anita Desai
Age: 87
Born: 1937
Born: June 24
Novelist
Short Story Writer
University Teacher
Writer
Much
Became
Conscious
Share
Family
Process
Used
Wrote
Young
Older
Self
Private

More quotes by Anita Desai

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People think that because I write about India I must be trying to portray India in a way.
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Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.
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When I am writing, I focus one hundred percent on my writing. Then, by the time I'm half way through the book, I'm already thinking about the ending.
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Usually a feeling of disappointment follows the book, because what I hoped to write is not what I actually accomplished. However, it becomes a motivation to write the next book.
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...the moon that hung over the garden like some great priceless pearl, flawed and blemished with grey shadowy ridges as only a very great beauty can risk being.
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I try to trace the connection between the characters and that way a story or plot emerges.
Anita Desai
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Do you know anyone who would - secretly, sincerely, in his innermost self - really prefer to return to childhood?
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Ever since I could first write I have been doing so. When I was taught how to write and read at school, I made up my mind that this was what I love to do best and this was the world I was going to occupy.
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India is a curious place that still preserves the past, religions, and its history. No matter how modern India becomes, it is still very much an old country.
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What a sense of possession, of confidence, it gave one to have pockets, to shove one's fists into them, as if in simply owning pockets one owned riches, owned independence.
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The wheel turns and turns and turns: it never stops and stands still.
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The book begins and ends with the visits to give the impression of a tunnel into their ancestors and family history. I believe in going backwards into the past - I felt I was digging a tunnel back to the past.
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Isn't it strange how life won't flow, like a river, but moves in jumps, as if it were held back by locks that are opened now and then to let it jump forwards in a kind of flood?
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I aim to tell the truth about any subject, not a romance or fantasy, not avoid the truth.
Anita Desai
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My style of writing is to allow the story to unfold on its own. I try not to structure my work too rigidly.
Anita Desai
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Someone who wants to write should make an effort to write a little something every day. Writing in this sense is the same as athletes who practice a sport every day to keep their skills honed.
Anita Desai