Quote

A novel is written not to be judged, but experienced.

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
Judged
Experienced
Novel
Written

More quotes by Anne Enright

Image
If you grow up in Ireland and read books then you really are obliged to attempt your own some time. It is not exactly a choice. I still don't know if I am a writer. Believe me, there are days when I have my doubts.
Anne Enright
Image
To be able to have the space to sit down and write has always been my central policy.
Anne Enright
Image
Belief needs something terrible to make it work, I find--blood, nails, a bit of anguish.
Anne Enright
Image
I am interested in levels of brain discourse. How articulate are the voices in your head? You know, there's a different voice for the phone, and a different voice if you're talking in bed. When you're starting off with a narrator, it's interesting to think, where is their voice coming from, what part of their brain?
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
People think motherhood involves a lot of domestic labor, and it doesn't. It involves being nice to your children as often as possible. That's part of my trick. I don't have that anxiety about meeting their needs.
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
I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. The Gathering did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time.
Anne Enright
Image
Nothing had happened yet in my life except the need to get out of it.
Anne Enright
Image
Try to be accurate about stuff.
Anne Enright
Image
I am interested in silences
Anne Enright
Image
The writing day can be, in some ways, too short, but it's actually a long series of hours, for months at a time, and there is a stillness there.
Anne Enright
Image
Only bad writers think that their work is really good.
Anne Enright
Image
God, I hate my family, these people I never chose to love, but love all the same.
Anne Enright
Image
I became a full-time writer in 1993 and have been very happy, insofar as anybody is, since.
Anne Enright
Image
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.
Anne Enright
Image
I think writers worry that you might not exist in some strange way if you're not writing.
Anne Enright
Image
Remember, if you sit at your desk for 15 or 20 years, every day, not counting weekends, it changes you. It just does. It may not improve your temper, but it fixes something else. It makes you more free.
Anne Enright
Image
It is very hard to trace the effect of words on a life.
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