Quote

I find being Irish quite a wearing thing. It takes so much work because it is a social construction. People think you are going to be this, this, and this.

Anne Enright

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Anne Enright
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: October 11
Author
Essayist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Television Director
Television Producer
Writer
Dublin city
Think
Takes
Thinking
Quite
People
Social
Find
Thing
Going
Irish
Work
Construction
Much
Wearing

More quotes by Anne Enright

Image
I'm very keenly aware that there aren't very many women writing literary fiction in Ireland and so that gives me a sense that what I say matters, in some small way.
Anne Enright
Image
There are little thoughts in your head that can grow until they eat your entire mind. Just tiny little thoughts--they are like a cancer, there is no telling what triggers the spread, or who will be struck, and why some get it and others are spared.
Anne Enright
Image
I became a full-time writer in 1993 and have been very happy, insofar as anybody is, since.
Anne Enright
Image
The only way to write a book, I’m fond of telling people, is to actually write a book. That’s how you write a book.
Anne Enright
Image
Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.
Anne Enright
Image
One of the reasons I write is I like being surprised
Anne Enright
Image
Having kids is very difficult to do on your own, and it's really crazy difficult to think you're doing it as a team and to find out that you're not actually part of a team.
Anne Enright
Image
Cats, I always think, only jump into your lap to check if you are cold enough, yet, to eat.
Anne Enright
Image
I think you know everything at eight. But is is hidden from you, sealed up, in a way you have to cut yourself open to find.
Anne Enright
Image
The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page.
Anne Enright
Image
There's quite a big gap when it comes to that dual identity of mother and child, or even a pregnant woman, or a nursing woman. It kind of begs the question of that very strong Western idea of the individual self.
Anne Enright
Image
Resistless change, when powerless to improve, Can only mar.
Anne Enright
Image
When I'm working, I'm not so much disciplined as obsessive. I have this feeling that I need to clear everything away and get this down.
Anne Enright
Image
I was raised in a very old fashioned Ireland where women were reared to be lovely.
Anne Enright
Image
I am a trembling mess from hip to knee. There is a terrible heat, a looseness in my innards that makes me want to dig my fists between my thighs. It is a confusing feeling - somewhere between diarrhoea and sex - this grief that is almost genital.
Anne Enright
Image
There is something wonderful about a death, how everything shuts down, and all the ways you thought you were vital are not even vaguely important. Your husband can feed the kids, he can work the new oven, he can find the sausages in the fridge, after all. And his important meeting was not important, not in the slightest.
Anne Enright
Image
No woman that I know is capable of leaving her child down for thirty seconds. She can't walk away without making sure that everything is absolutely as secure and safe for her child as can be.
Anne Enright
Image
I think it’s very important to write a demythologized woman character. My characters are flawed. They are no better than they should be.
Anne Enright
Image
Naming is nice. It took me days before I was able to speak a name for my first child (what if people did not like it?), and I suspect we gave her a secret, second name as well, to keep her safe.
Anne Enright
Image
God, I hate my family, these people I never chose to love, but love all the same.
Anne Enright