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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've been in a long and happy relationship for 22 years and it's never inspired me to write anything. It's too good - nothing to say. Problems, conflict, that's what makes for good stories.
Emma Donoghue
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Goodbye, Room. I wave up at Skylight. Say goodbye, I tell Ma. Goodbye, Room. Ma says it but on mute. I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened. Then we go out the door.
Emma Donoghue
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For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have...
Emma Donoghue
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When I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coulouring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.
Emma Donoghue
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Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.
Emma Donoghue
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Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.
Emma Donoghue
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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.
Emma Donoghue
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The paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence.
Emma Donoghue
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Everyone's got a different story.
Emma Donoghue
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Everybody's damaged by something.
Emma Donoghue
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At the door, there was one of those moment when two people realize that they like each other more than they know each other. This is nicer than the opposite situation, but more awkward. You try to remember the protocol for touching. You hate to gush, or presume to much, yet you are unwilling to let the moment pass without without some gesture
Emma Donoghue
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A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.
Emma Donoghue
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I thought one way to try to hold on to the power was to write the script myself. That way, I could say to filmmakers, I'm not asking you to hire me unseen. I'm just saying, 'Here's my script. Can we work together?' So that worked out well.
Emma Donoghue
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There may be certain genres that men dominate, but fiction not so much. The question of prizes is tricky because there are so many prizes.
Emma Donoghue
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...sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words.
Emma Donoghue
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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.
Emma Donoghue
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I think I know what it's like to have a family that the outside world sees as peculiar or lacking.
Emma Donoghue
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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.
Emma Donoghue
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Writers should be applauded for their ability to make things up.
Emma Donoghue
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I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.
Emma Donoghue