I have sat here at my desk, day after day, night after night, a blank sheet of paper before me, unable to lift my pen, trembling and weeping too. Susan Hill More Quotes by Susan Hill More Quotes From Susan Hill This gardener will be out in the very early morning and from late afternoon, attentive to small changes in the quality of light and the atmosphere, as well as to every nuance of the season, which combine to create perfection. Susan Hill small-changes light morning Gardeners celebrate the influence of time. If we have had a late cold spring followed by a desiccating drought, autumn may be the most soft and golden for years; one poor season will sooner or later be compensated for by another. Susan Hill autumn spring time It would be difficult to write a convincing ghost story set on a sunny day in a big city. Susan Hill city story day difficult I wrote ghost stories because I'd always enjoyed reading them, and they seemed to be fizzling out... I don't take them terribly seriously. It's like a cake, with ingredients. Susan Hill seriously always cake reading Though they don't always have to be set in fog, weather is incredibly important in ghost stories. As is suspense: you've got to turn the screw very, very slowly. Susan Hill you fog important weather Flashback in film rarely works. Susan Hill rarely works flashback film Yorkshire is so much part of me. Susan Hill much part me yorkshire It's easy to write a short story and frighten people for five pages, but to work at length, when you do it as in 'The Turn Of The Screw' or 'A Christmas Carol,' it's different; you have to build it and build it. Susan Hill you christmas work people Kindness is a sort of love without being love. Susan Hill without being kindness love Love has an enormous number of connotations, and if somebody is a person who does kind acts as a way of life, if they are generally disposed to being caring and loving and doing things for other people, then kindness is a much stronger word than we make it out to be. Susan Hill kindness love life people I don't really do jolly. I don't know why, I just don't. Susan Hill why just know jolly I've never written poetry. I'm not a poet, but I think the nearest you get is either the short story or the novella, in that you can't waste a word. There is no hiding place: everything's got to be seen to relate, and the prose counts. Susan Hill place think you poetry I'm not one of those people who hates Amazon because they're big. Why pay a third more for the same thing? Susan Hill why more big people A lot of writers want everything put on screen, but it doesn't work like that. The screenwriter brings her own imaginative interpretation, just as the director and actors do. Susan Hill own everything want work If you were writing a short ghost story, I would say start very quietly and go, 'One, two, three jump.' Or start with a jump and make it jumpier. But with a long story, it must have rises and falls. Susan Hill short start you long I was an only child who was never really good at anything else. I had no other option. I could write; I wanted to write; I wrote. Otherwise, I was unemployable. Susan Hill only never good child In another life I would be a medievalist. I loved Chaucer, far more than Shakespeare. Susan Hill far loved more life The one thing the Victorians really believed in was philanthropy. I think we've forgotten the obligation to be philanthropic. I think we need smaller government, but I want to make it clear I'm not the Sarah Palin of the Cotswolds. Susan Hill need think government want Films always make everyone else rich save the author. Susan Hill everyone make always rich The New Testament is about loving other people as you love yourself. That means caring for them and looking after them and being kind to them. Susan Hill yourself you love people