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I'm quite interested in the absolute roots of narrative, why we tell stories at all: where the monsters come from.

Anne Enright

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Anne Enright
Age: 62
Born: 1962
Born: October 11
Author
Essayist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Television Director
Television Producer
Writer
Dublin city
Interested
Quite
Tell
Stories
Monsters
Come
Narrative
Absolutes
Absolute
Roots

More quotes by Anne Enright

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I think writers worry that you might not exist in some strange way if you're not writing.
Anne Enright
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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
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Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you ­finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.
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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.
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Resistless change, when powerless to improve, Can only mar.
Anne Enright
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Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.
Anne Enright
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Writing is not my problem, it is my solution.
Anne Enright
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Belief needs something terrible to make it work, I find--blood, nails, a bit of anguish.
Anne Enright
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I am interested in silences
Anne Enright
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I think young children in the Western middle classes are objects of incredible anxiety.
Anne Enright
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I work at the sentences. Many of the things people find distinctive about my writing, I think of as natural.
Anne Enright
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People whose lives are upside down often read fiction. When you're not sure where you'll end up or how you are going to be, and you're looking for some way forward, fiction is a great friend.
Anne Enright
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Story is about pulling the reader in and a plot is a more externalized mechanism of revelation. A plot is more antic, more performative, and less intimate. When you're telling a story you're telling it into someone's ear.
Anne Enright
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When you find yourself alone, or in a transition, you dream more. These are also the times when you read books.
Anne Enright
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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
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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
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I do wish I could write like some of the American women, who can be clever and heartfelt and hopeful people like Lorrie Moore and Jennifer Egan. But Ireland messed me up too much, I think, so I can't.
Anne Enright
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Nothing had happened yet in my life except the need to get out of it.
Anne Enright
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If your life just falls apart early on, you can put it together again. Its the people who are always on the brink of crisis who dont hit bottom who are in trouble.
Anne Enright
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A novel is written not to be judged, but experienced.
Anne Enright