Quote

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

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
Years
Write
Good
Makes
Never
Stories
Problem
Inspired
Anything
Conflict
Nothing
Problems
Writing
Relationship
Long
Happy

More quotes by Emma Donoghue

Image
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
Image
I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
I hate desks they make me feel like a child doing homework.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.
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
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
...real loneliness is having no one to miss. Think yourself lucky you've known something worth missing.
Emma Donoghue
Image
Identity politics are wearisome you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer.
Emma Donoghue
Image
Sometimes you must shed your skin to save it.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
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.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
She leaped into space, high, higher than she'd ever been in her life. She came down with a clean snap, and the crowd scattered like birds from the swing of her feet.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
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
Change for your own sake, if you must, not for what you imagine another will ask of you.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
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