Emma Donoghue Quotes

It turns up the heat under a narrative when you limit the characters in their movements or their freedoms.

I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework.

I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way.

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!

I've certainly seen stats that if you have a woman director or a woman screenwriter, the number of female characters goes way up.

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.

What writing ROOM taught me was that I know exactly how to be the perfect mother, but I'm not willing to do it for more than ten minutes at a time.

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.

I think ultimately the film 'Room' is a kind of hymn to motherhood and to the everyday heroism of parents who find their smiles in terrible times.

I wrote the novel [Room], and then I thought, "This could work on film, and I want to be the one to do it." So I went ahead and drafted it.

What's crucial about being an executive producer is that you stay in the loop, information-wise. They have to share all their major decisions with you.

If you have written something that the film people want, like a book, it does give you a way in.

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.

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.

I think there are few films out there that take motherhood seriously.

I guess the feminism in "Room" springs to mind most.

I think sometimes the way to preserve the magic of a book is to throw it away - meaning, not to cling to the way a book does its magic but to find a cinematic equivalent.

Seriously, I think what all the puzzling over parenthood I had to do to write [a novel] ROOM taught me is that children can thrive in a remarkable range of situations.

I was anticipating that some readers might misread [the book] ROOM itself as a hymn to homeschooling.

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.

I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga.

Any parent knows how to be the ideal parent.

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.

I've always been religiously inclined, but it doesn't come up in most of my books.

Identity politics are wearisome; you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer.

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.

...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.

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.

You know who you belong to Jack? - Yeah. Yourself. - He's wrong, actually, I belong to Ma. p. 261 Room by E Donoghue

People are locked up in all sorts of ways.

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 let's you get on with it.

Sometimes when persons say definitely it sounds actually less true.

I read three books a week.

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.

I've been writing full-time since I was 23.

... where there's one there's ten.'That's crazy math.

In the yard of the inn, Daffy Cadwaladyr introduced himself. "Short for Davyd, " he said pleasantly.The Londoner looked as if she'd never heard a sillier name in her life.

And why must it always be presumed that a woman's views are based on personal considerations?

Men never feel quite the same about a woman's body once they know it's done that thing: widened and torn to push out a baby's head.

The crow flew closer, as if to hear its praises.

Sometimes words were like glass that broke in her mouth.

Any subject we exclude from fiction will drop from our culture's memory.

It was the word 'late' that did it. Such a stupid word to use of the dead, implying that they would be with us today if they hadn't happened to be delayed in traffic somewhere...

In the days when wishing was having, I got what I wished and then I wish I hadn't.

I think she was too tired to play anymore, she was in a hurry to get to Heaven so she didn't wait, why didn't she wait for me?

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.

...everyone goes home in the end.

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.

I may have had moments of regret in my life, but you know, they wouldn't add up to an hour.

Keep your heart infinitesimally small and sorrow will never spy it, never plunge, never flap away with your heart in her claws.