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 It is very hard to trace the effect of words on a life. Anne Enright effects hard I'm very keenly aware that there aren't very many women writing literary fiction in Ireland and so that gives me a sense that what I say matters, in some small way. Anne Enright writing giving fiction I write anywhere - when I have an idea it’s hard not to write. I used to be kind of precious about where I wrote. Everything had to be quiet and I couldn’t be disturbed, it really filled my day. Anne Enright be-kind writing ideas I have a small room to write in. One wall is completely covered in books. And I face the window with the curtain closed to stop the light hitting the computer. Anne Enright wall writing book I do wish I could write like some of the American women, who can be clever and heartfelt and hopeful; people like Lorrie Moore and Jennifer Egan. But Ireland messed me up too much, I think, so I can't. Anne Enright clever writing thinking When I'm working, I'm not so much disciplined as obsessive. I have this feeling that I need to clear everything away and get this down. Anne Enright clear feelings needs To be able to have the space to sit down and write has always been my central policy. Anne Enright down-and space writing If you try to control it too much, the book is dead. You have to let it fall apart quite early on and let it start doing its own thing. And that takes nerve, not to panic that the book you were going to write is not the book you will have at the end of the day. Anne Enright writing book fall Story is about pulling the reader in and a plot is a more externalized mechanism of revelation. A plot is more antic, more performative, and less intimate. When you're telling a story you're telling it into someone's ear. Anne Enright plot ears stories People whose lives are upside down often read fiction. When you're not sure where you'll end up or how you are going to be, and you're looking for some way forward, fiction is a great friend. Anne Enright way-forward people fiction My kids are supposed to live till they are one hundred. You don't have to have a perfect house or a perfect relationship with your child or a perfect child, and you yourself do not have to be perfect. Anne Enright perfect kids children I think young children in the Western middle classes are objects of incredible anxiety. Anne Enright class children thinking People think motherhood involves a lot of domestic labor, and it doesn't. It involves being nice to your children as often as possible. That's part of my trick. I don't have that anxiety about meeting their needs. Anne Enright motherhood nice children No woman that I know is capable of leaving her child down for thirty seconds. She can't walk away without making sure that everything is absolutely as secure and safe for her child as can be. Anne Enright leaving safe children Sometimes I will spend two or three days not speaking to anyone outside of the immediate family when they come home, and then I find that I've been emailing like fury. Once you give in to that silence, it's quite nice. Anne Enright nice home two Ireland is a series of stories that have been told to us, starting with the Irish Celtic national revival. I never believed in 'Old Ireland.' It has been made all of kitsch by the diaspora, looking back and deciding what Ireland is. Yes, it is green. Yes, it is friendly. I can't think of anything else for definite. Anne Enright looking think looking-back green There often is a dark secret in books... There is often a gathering sense of dread; there's a gap sometimes in the text from which all kinds of monsters can emerge. Anne Enright secret gathering dark sometimes Recently I read the stories I wrote in my early 20s, to put in a volume. And here is this brittle young woman, writing about marriage as, not the worst thing, but the most boring thing that could happen to a person. Now I think I was wrong. I like to be proven wrong. Anne Enright woman think marriage boring There's no such thing as a life that is not normal, or, there's no such thing as a life that is not abnormal. We all have amazing lives; we all have very dull lives. Anne Enright amazing normal life dull
