I'm starting to think my narrators' sentences are getting too big for them, and they are getting to sound a bit samey and, more disturbingly, a bit too much like me. Anne Enright More Quotes by Anne Enright More Quotes From Anne Enright And what amazes me as I hit the motorway is not the fact that everyone loses someone, but that everyone loves someone. It seems like such a massive waste of energy -- and we all do it, all the people beetling along between the white lines, merging, converging, overtaking. We each love someone, even though they will die. And we keep loving them, even when they are not there to love any more. And there is no logic or use to any of this, that I can see. Anne Enright energy white people Belief needs something terrible to make it work, I find--blood, nails, a bit of anguish. Anne Enright nails blood needs I do not think we remember our family in any real sense. We live in them instead Anne Enright real remember thinking I am interested in silences Anne Enright silence There is something wonderful about a death, how everything shuts down, and all the ways you thought you were vital are not even vaguely important. Your husband can feed the kids, he can work the new oven, he can find the sausages in the fridge, after all. And his important meeting was not important, not in the slightest. Anne Enright husband death kids There is nothing as tentative as an old woman's touch; as loving or as horrible. Anne Enright old-woman horrible Nothing had happened yet in my life except the need to get out of it. Anne Enright happened needs And, in fact, this is the tale that I would love to write: history is such a romantic place, with its jarveys and urchins and side-buttoned boots. If it would just stay still, I think, and settle down. If it would just stop sliding around in my head. Anne Enright boots writing thinking I work at the sentences. Many of the things people find distinctive about my writing, I think of as natural. Anne Enright writing people thinking If you grow up in Ireland and read books then you really are obliged to attempt your own some time. It is not exactly a choice. I still don't know if I am a writer. Believe me, there are days when I have my doubts. Anne Enright growing-up believe book I've heard people, usually writers, say that no one wrote a great book after winning the Booker, but I honestly did not feel any big pressure. The Gathering did hang over me in that it was darker than I thought at the time. Anne Enright winning book people I love the characters not knowing everything and the reader knowing more than them. There's more mischief in that and more room for seriousness, too. Anne Enright knowing-everything not-knowing character I never wanted to be mainstream as a writer, but look at what's happened. Anne Enright mainstream wanted looks I think it’s very important to write a demythologized woman character. My characters are flawed. They are no better than they should be. Anne Enright writing character thinking I was raised in a very old fashioned Ireland where women were reared to be lovely. Anne Enright lovely raised old-fashioned I'm quite interested in the absolute roots of narrative, why we tell stories at all: where the monsters come from. Anne Enright roots stories monsters If you can just actually let the character be for a bit, then you get the right sense. Anne Enright bits ifs character In more static societies, like Ireland, you can tell where a person is from by their surname, or where their grandparents are from. Anne Enright surnames static grandparent Writing is not my problem, it is my solution. Anne Enright solutions problem writing The writing day can be, in some ways, too short, but it's actually a long series of hours, for months at a time, and there is a stillness there. Anne Enright writing long way
