Quote

Nowadays, 'invisibility' was supposed to be the big problem, but the way I saw it was, all that mattered was to be visible to yourself.

Emma Donoghue

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Emma Donoghue
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Problem
Way
Invisibility
Mattered
Nowadays
Visible
Supposed
Saws
Bigs

More quotes by Emma Donoghue

Image
Stories are a different kind of true.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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.
Emma Donoghue
Image
For all the books in his possession, he still failed to read the stories written plain as day in the faces of the people around him.
Emma Donoghue
Image
...real loneliness is having no one to miss. Think yourself lucky you've known something worth missing.
Emma Donoghue
Image
With my first book, I was hired to write a draft of the script. I was so young and less confident. They put me through seven or eight drafts and it was just getting worse and worse, and then the film was never made.
Emma Donoghue
Image
I tend to be so lost in the work that I don't notice the weather. My partner will come home and say, 'Beautiful day, wasn't it?' and I'll say, 'Was it?' as I won't have noticed the real world at all.
Emma Donoghue
Image
So much as I enjoy big novels of epic sweep, I often find, say, if they follow several generations, by the third generation, I'm not caring about the people anymore.
Emma Donoghue
Image
I think I read Susan Brownmiller's classic book called Femininity when I was about 16. So yeah, it's been part of my mindset since a very early age. To me, what's crucial is to tell women's stories but also to tell them in a way that is fearless.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.
Emma Donoghue
Image
A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.
Emma Donoghue
Image
I hate desks they make me feel like a child doing homework.
Emma Donoghue
Image
Kissing a witch is a perilous business. Everybody knows it's ten times as dangerous as letting her touch your hand, or cut your hair, or steal your shoes. What simpler way is there than a kiss to give power a way into your heart?
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
I always wince a little bit when I send me to each of my new books. I wince at submitting myself to my father's judgment. But, of course, he's such a fond father that he always writes back, saying it's the greatest thing ever written.
Emma Donoghue
Image
Everybody's damaged by something.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way.
Emma Donoghue
Image
I think I know what it's like to have a family that the outside world sees as peculiar or lacking.
Emma Donoghue
Image
...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.
Emma Donoghue