And she thought then how strange it was that disaster--the sort of disaster that drained the blood from your body and took the air out of your lungs and hit you again and again in the face--could be at times, such a thing of beauty.

Anita Shreve

Categorized in : Blood Air Body

I loved him," Muire said. "We were in love." As if that were enough.

Anita Shreve

ifs enough said

In the time it takes for her to walk from the bathhouse at the seawall of Fortune's Rocks, where she has left her boots and has discreetly pulled off her stockings, to the waterline along which the sea continually licks the pink and silver sand, she learns about desire.

Anita Shreve

rocks sea desire

A house with any kind of age will have dozens of stories to tell. I suppose if a novelist could live long enough, one could base an entire oeuvre on the lives that weave in and out of an antique house.

Anita Shreve

live age house long

WWI is a romantic war, in all senses of the word. An entire generation of men and women left the comforts of Edwardian life to travel bravely, and sometimes even jauntily, to almost certain death. At the very least, any story or novel about WWI is about innocence shattered in the face of experience.

Anita Shreve

women war life death

I've always been charmed by houses, and descriptions of them are prominent in my novels. So prominent, in fact, that my editor once pointed out to me that all of my early novels had houses on the covers.

Anita Shreve

fact early me always

A novel is a collision of ideas. Three or four threads may be floating around in the writer's consciousness, and at a single moment in time, these ideas collide and produce a novel.

Anita Shreve

moment single time ideas

I have spent many hours on the beach collecting sea glass, and I almost always wonder, as I bend to pick up chunk of bottle green or a shard of meringue white, what the history of the glass was. Who used it? Was it a medicine bottle? A bit of a ship's lantern? Is that bubbled piece of glass with the charred bits inside it from a fire?

Anita Shreve

green fire sea history

The pull of history has been a strong theme in my life as a novelist.

Anita Shreve

my-life strong life history

Like many readers, I am continually in search of books that allow me to lose myself in an entirely unique universe.

Anita Shreve

i-am myself me unique

I can think of no other experience quite like that of being 20 or so pages into a book and realizing that this is the real thing: a book that is going to offer the delicious promise of a riveting story, arresting language and characters that will haunt me for days.

Anita Shreve

me experience language book

As a novelist, I remain interested in the notion of a single reckless act and its consequences.

Anita Shreve

act consequences reckless single

I have a Facebook page and a website. Beyond that, I'm actually a very private person. I'd rather see the focus on the books than on me.

Anita Shreve

person see me focus

I edit as I write. I revise endlessly. I don't go forward until I know that what I've written is as good as I can make it.

Anita Shreve

good go know i-can

My favourite books series as a young child was the Frank L. Baum 'Wizard of Oz' series. They were beautifully written, oversized fat books with wonderful type and illustrations.

Anita Shreve

fat child young wonderful

I got hit by the bug of reading - not via a person, but via the one-room library in our small town. I remember that the children's books were in the right-hand corner near the floor. Often when I went there, I was the only visitor.

Anita Shreve

library reading remember children

I start writing at 7.30 A.M. and write till noon. I've never written a single word after 5.00 P.M.

Anita Shreve

never start single writing

I love working alone. Crave it, in fact. I feel truly alive then.

Anita Shreve

alone feel alive love