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You cannot predict literary success the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well.

Emma Donoghue

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Emma Donoghue
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Thing
Predict
Way
Literary
Possibly
Aim
Success
Cannot
Wells
Well

More quotes by Emma Donoghue

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Stories are a different kind of true.
Emma Donoghue
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I must say, in the case of Room, both the book and the film, I don't think being a lesbian author held me back at all.
Emma Donoghue
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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
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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.
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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
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I read three books a week.
Emma Donoghue
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I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was.
Emma Donoghue
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People move around so much in the world, things get lost.
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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When people write to me with stories, they are never ones that work for me. There's something mysterious about which ones catch you.
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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Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.
Emma Donoghue
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Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.
Emma Donoghue
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I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless.
Emma Donoghue
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...real loneliness is having no one to miss. Think yourself lucky you've known something worth missing.
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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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
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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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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