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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: 54
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Wells
Well
Thing
Predict
Way
Literary
Possibly
Aim
Success
Cannot
More quotes by Emma Donoghue
Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene.
Emma Donoghue
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
There are some tales not for telling, whether because they are too long, too precious, too laughable, too painful, too easy to need telling or too hard to explain. After all, after years and travels my secrets are all I have left to chew on in the night.
Emma Donoghue
I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga.
Emma Donoghue
...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
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
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.
Emma Donoghue
You know who you belong to Jack? - Yeah. Yourself. - He's wrong, actually, I belong to Ma. p. 261 Room by E Donoghue
Emma Donoghue
Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.
Emma Donoghue
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
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
I've certainly seen stats that if you have a woman director or a woman screenwriter, the number of female characters goes way up.
Emma Donoghue
Sometimes you must shed your skin to save it.
Emma Donoghue
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
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
I watch his hands, they're lumpy but clever. Is there a word for adults when they aren't parents? Steppa laughs. Folks with other things to do?
Emma Donoghue
I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was.
Emma Donoghue
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
...real loneliness is having no one to miss. Think yourself lucky you've known something worth missing.
Emma Donoghue
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