Emma Donoghue Quotes

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.

Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.

Everybody's damaged by something.

People don't always want to be with people. It gets tiring.

In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time...I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well...I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter all over the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.

Stories are a different kind of true.

I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.

Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you." I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.

It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” When a bit of me hurts, I always mind.

Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.

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?

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.

Maybe I’m a human, but I’m a me-and-Ma as well.

The sound of the pages turning was the sound of magic. The dry liquid feel of paper under fingertips was what magic felt like.

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.

You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well.

There are some tales not for telling, whether because they are too long, too precious, too laughable, too painful, too easy to need telling or too hard to explain. After all, after years and travels my secrets are all I have left to chew on in the night.

If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could.

Me and Ma have a deal, we're going to try everything one time so we know what we like.

He [Ma's Tooth] was part of her a minute ago but now he's not. Just a thing.

Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.

Sometimes you must shed your skin to save it.

...sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words.

When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything

When I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and Outside being totally real. Now I’m in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn’t real at all.