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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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Emma Donoghue
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
State
Innocence
Chance
Ideal
Another
Happenings
States
Happening
Book
Ideals
Even
Killing
Across
Publicity
Reader
Paradox

More quotes by Emma Donoghue

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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.
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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.
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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 cannot predict literary success the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well.
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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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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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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.
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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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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.
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The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I got in the habit of giving away a book as soon as I've finished it because I lived in a housing co-op at Cambridge and had no space to keep books.
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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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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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.
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Sometimes you must shed your skin to save it.
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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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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