Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Emma Donoghue
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: October 24
Literary Historian
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Dublin city
Write
Stories
Writing
Work
Something
Never
Catch
People
Mysterious
Ones

More quotes by Emma Donoghue

Image
Change for your own sake, if you must, not for what you imagine another will ask of you.
Emma Donoghue
Image
Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
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
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
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
The way to my heart is through Belgian milk chocolate.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
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.
Emma Donoghue
Image
I read three books a week.
Emma Donoghue
Image
I think I read Susan Brownmiller's classic book called Femininity when I was about 16. So yeah, it's been part of my mindset since a very early age. To me, what's crucial is to tell women's stories but also to tell them in a way that is fearless.
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
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'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
Image
Everyone's got a different story.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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
Image
When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything
Emma Donoghue
Image
And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travelers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battlements, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts.
Emma Donoghue
Image
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