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This is a bad story.” “Sorry. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.” “No, you should,” I say. “But—” “I don’t want there to be bad stories and me not know them.

Emma Donoghue

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Emma Donoghue
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Sorry
Told
Story
Stories
Really
Shouldn

More quotes by Emma Donoghue

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I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way.
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...sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words.
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I hate desks they make me feel like a child doing homework.
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Writing is nearly always a matter of finding whatever your brain needs to trick it into being creative, and in my case, a tiny little bit of fact just seems to work.
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Something we do know is that review coverage does go to male authors more than women authors. That's a fact. I think it's one of those examples of unconscious bias: If you hire a lot of male journalists, they're more likely to pick up the latest Ian McEwan novel than the latest A.S. Byatt novel.
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We used to call it her Cinderella complex, because often when she had agreed to go out in the evening she would be seized by panic and announce that she had nothing to wear.
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You know who you belong to Jack? - Yeah. Yourself. - He's wrong, actually, I belong to Ma. p. 261 Room by E Donoghue
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I've certainly seen stats that if you have a woman director or a woman screenwriter, the number of female characters goes way up.
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Sometimes you must shed your skin to save it.
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...Sometimes I suspect that what had really happened was that we became more resigned, more cynical, raised our pain thresholds as we lowered our expectations. All in all, settled for less.
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I'm really aware that in fiction, women are pretty much equal. There's a lot of very successful women novelists. Not so much [for women writers working] in film.
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Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.
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I found motherhood a crash course in existentialism (what is my purpose in life, am I mistress or slave of my destiny, when the hell do I get some sleep?) and [the book] ROOM was the result.
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I was highly aware, in writing [the book] ROOM, that there are unsavoury aspects to our interest in such cases, and I thought it was rather honester to include discussion of media representation in the novel itself than to cling to the high moral ground by merely avoiding scenes of voyeurism, for instance.
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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 let's you get on with it.
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Identity politics are wearisome you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer.
Emma Donoghue
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I guess the feminism in Room springs to mind most.
Emma Donoghue
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When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything
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Everyone's got a different story.
Emma Donoghue
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Change for your own sake, if you must, not for what you imagine another will ask of you.
Emma Donoghue