Quotes by Emma Donoghue - Page 1

I've been writing full-time since I was 23.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Full-Time
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Any parent knows how to be the ideal parent.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Parent
Ideal
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The way to my heart is through Belgian milk chocolate.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Chocolate
Milk
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I'm a huge planner, more and more so as the years go by.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
More And More
Planner
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Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Courage
Smile
Brave
Feelings
Scared
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I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Homework
Hate Me Feel
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Writers should be applauded for their ability to make things up.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Applauded
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I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Time Consuming
Success Failure Way
Finding
Success Is
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I love it when novels contain a broad cast of characters, including queer ones.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Including
Broad
Cast
Contain
Queer
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I've always been religiously inclined, but it doesn't come up in most of my books.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Inclined
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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 / Playwright
Identity
Group
Speaking
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A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Memoir
Authentic
Different Places
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I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Yoga
Sports
Dancing
Despise
Gentle
Littles
Nervous
Driver
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I think it would be a shame for any writer to let their publishers in any way corral them into a single genre.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Genre
Publishers
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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 / Playwright
Aim
Predict
Literary
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I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Austen
Jane
Relate
Confident
Named
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Every parent has those moments where they look at their child and think, 'There's a demon in those eyes and no one can see it but me!'
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Demon
Parent
Eyes Me Look
Eyes Look Me
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The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Short Story
Whole
Side
Short
Great Thing
Story
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You're meant to have an unhappy childhood to be a writer, but there's a lot to be said for a very happy one that just lets you get on with it.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Happy Childhood
Unhappy
Lets
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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 / Playwright
Cambridge
Habit
Housing
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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 / Playwright
Parent
Extreme
Produces
Psychologically
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I come out of an academic background, and I'm aware that what I'm doing is simultaneously research and fiction. I want to meet both those obligations.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Academic
Background
Obligations
Simultaneously
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I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Immediately
Incident
Only Difference
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I have never been depressed or thrown a plate, which I attribute to the cathartic effects of writing books about people whose lives are more grueling than mine.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Cathartic
Effects
Thrown
People Never More
Attribute
Depressed
Grueling
Plate
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I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person's point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I'm not naturally good at strong plot.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Dialogue
Following
Plot
Point Of View
Naturally
Time Good Character
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There are so many examples today of how the kind of wonderful zealousness and unquestioning loyalty of young people can be harnessed by all sorts of insidious powers.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Loyalty
Example
People
Today
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I remember a period where my publisher said to me, 'Look, your historical work is selling much better than your contemporary work, so please give us more historicals.'
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Contemporary
Please
Selling
Work Better Your
Work Look Me
Publisher
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Ah yes, 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 / Playwright
Innocence
Paradox
Publicity
Reader
Ah
Ideal
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One thing I like about historical fiction is that I'm not constantly focusing on me, or people like me; you're obliged to concentrate on lives that are completely other than your own.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Fiction
Historical
Historical Fiction
Obliged
One Thing
Your Me People
Constantly
Concentrate
Me Your People
Focusing
Me People Your
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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.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Marvelous
Planning
Produce
Structure
Chapter
Plots
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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 / Playwright
Beautiful Day
Real World
Weather
Notice
Partner
The Real World
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I'm constantly saying, 'I read a fascinating article in 'The New Yorker'... ' I say it so often that sometimes I think I have nothing interesting to say myself, I merely regurgitate 'The New Yorker.'
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Fascinating
Article
Merely
New Yorker
Yorker
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I'm not at all snobby about book prizes and how they pollute the world of literature. Just like with the Olympics, a little bit of competition gets people truly engrossed in the business of literature.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Olympics
Snobby
Prizes
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Kids delight in 'magical thinking', whether in the form of the Tooth Fairy or the saints: whether you see these as comforting lies or eternal verities, they are part of how we help kids make sense of the world.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Comforting
Delight
Eternal
Fairy
Tooth Fairy
Lies
Magical
Saints
Tooth
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You know, plenty of people headed off to Canada or America on the basis of government information, propaganda campaigns. Often you'd go off with a brochure in hand and you'd turn up and it wouldn't be like that at all.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Campaigns
Plenty
Propaganda
Basis
Government Information People
Headed
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You know the way there are two kinds of actors - the De Niro kind who's always De Niro, and then somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself eerily? Well, I aim to be the Daniel Day-Lewis kind of writer. I don't have a house style.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Aim
De Niro
Daniel
Niro
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Before I had kids, I thought you should never lie to a kid. But now I've had them, I realize you almost lie to them by definition, because if you're trying to summarize something for your 1-year-old, you put it in very simple terms. You only gradually complicate the explanation as they get older.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Explanation
Simple
Almost
Complicate
Definition
Lie
Gradually
Older
Realize
Terms
Summarize
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There's no neutral language about travel. Either travel is described in ways that make it sound kind of shallow or just glossy or silly or a way for rich people to spend their time; or else travel is often described in quite derogatory ways, you know, like immigrants swarming across borders, for instance.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Borders
Derogatory
Immigrants
Instance
Rich People
Shallow
Silly
Time Travel People
Neutral
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[E]verywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear.
Emma Donoghue / Playwright
Cute
Kids
Smile
Coffee
Talking
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Emma Donoghue Quotes - Page 1

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