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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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Emma Donoghue
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Never
Stories
Problem
Inspired
Anything
Conflict
Nothing
Problems
Writing
Relationship
Long
Happy
Years
Write
Good
Makes

More quotes by Emma Donoghue

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Everybody's damaged by something.
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.
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.
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...real loneliness is having no one to miss. Think yourself lucky you've known something worth missing.
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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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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
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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
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I was anticipating that some readers might misread [the book] ROOM itself as a hymn to homeschooling.
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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.
Emma Donoghue
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Writing is nearly always a matter of finding whatever your brain needs to trick it into being creative, and in my case, a tiny little bit of fact just seems to work.
Emma Donoghue
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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
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Identity politics are wearisome you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer.
Emma Donoghue
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...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
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Stories are a different kind of true.
Emma Donoghue
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I think I know what it's like to have a family that the outside world sees as peculiar or lacking.
Emma Donoghue
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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
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People move around so much in the world, things get lost.
Emma Donoghue
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When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything
Emma Donoghue
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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