Novelists are no more moral or certain than anybody else; we are ideologically adrift, and if we are any good then our writing will live in several places at once. That is both our curse and our charm. Andrew O'Hagan More Quotes by Andrew O'Hagan More Quotes From Andrew O'Hagan Writing a novel is an act of self-annihilation as much as self-discovery. You can kill whole appetites and flood whole depths while plumbing them, but if you are serious about it you also get to put something into the world that wasn't quite there before. Andrew O'Hagan selfwritingdiscovery The working class of England take their deracination completely for granted. Disenchantment is the happy code that informs every byway of the underclass: service jobs, celebrity dreams, Lotto wins, leisured poverty on pre-crunch credit cards, it's all there, part of the story of an English people whose grandparents never had it so good. Andrew O'Hagan dreamwinningjobs Given that most movies are bad, and that there are whole categories and sub-categories of badness - the sequel, the Madonna Movie, the Friday 13th Series, or Movies Starring John Travolta Before Pulp Fiction - it is almost impossible to choose a single film for worst movie of all time. But strangely, I do have a nomination and I believe it is actually the worst movie ever made. It is Boxing Helena. The director is David Lynch's daughter, and the film comes with the almost insane-making faults that the family connection might imply. Andrew O'Hagan fridaydaughterbelieve Like children all over the world, by the age of 10 I'd come to believe that most of the really humane creatures were not really human at all. Andrew O'Hagan agebelievechildren We do not read to pass the time, but to inhabit time. Andrew O'Hagan wise The first rule of travel is that you should always go with someone you love, which is why I travel alone. Andrew O'Hagan one-you-lovesomeone-you-lovefirsts The idea that people in novels should be more sympathetic than people in life simply baffles me. Andrew O'Hagan shouldpeopleideas When you grow up by the sea, you spend a good deal of time looking at the horizon. You wonder what on Earth the waves might bring - and where the sea might deposit you - until one day you know you have lived between two places, the scene of arrival and the point of departure. Andrew O'Hagan daygoodseatime There's a horrible fallacy that exists in the popular discussion of fiction these days: the idea that a successful central character need be 'likeable' or 'sympathetic'. It is surely more important that they be human, no? More crucial that they breathe? Andrew O'Hagan needmoreimportantcharacter Long before the arrival of reality TV - before speed cameras, before recording angels on buses and lampposts - I felt I was living in a country that already knew how to watch itself. It was journalism that held the responsibility for seeing who we were and noticing what we did. Andrew O'Hagan journalismspeedresponsibilitylong A theatre is not a blank page for editorial, it is not a soapbox or a Tannoy system: it is a conscience that wakes with what is happening in the space, and wakes further still in response to what people are making of it. Andrew O'Hagan consciencetheatrespacepeople High culture isn't what it used to be. Andrew O'Hagan highusedculture I always knew I would come to London. I loved Glasgow, but it seemed filled with echoes of my parents' lives, and sometimes you just want a city of your own. Andrew O'Hagan cityparentsyousometimes I had always been literary, in the sense of loving poetry and discovering novels, but I found my voice, as they say, in an office full of elderly people who looked after blind ex-servicemen. Andrew O'Hagan voiceblindpoetrypeople Every literary culture has among its first bearings the 'blether' of animals who seek to make sense of human existence. Andrew O'Hagan animalshumanexistenceculture We sometimes forget that human invention can also be a subject of human invention: that might seem a modern notion, or a postmodern one, but novelists have taken time - sometimes time out from their realist fixations - to source and satirise the speech and power we rely on. Andrew O'Hagan powertimeforgetsometimes In Britain, the great hidden secret of talking animals and children's literature is how political it was in its bones, beneath the obvious cuteness. Andrew O'Hagan greatpoliticalliteraturechildren Everybody has an idea of the kind of society they'd like to live in, and I would like to live in one where our senior politicians were spirited and original and possibly even good at what they do. Andrew O'Hagan politicianslivegoodsociety I probably owe my political dismay to New Labour, but also my growing sense that the satirical shape of human affairs is international and historical, not glued to the tawdry ambitions of a team of politicians who represent nothing but themselves. Andrew O'Hagan nothingnewpoliticalteam Events in America show the extent to which democracy there is fuelled by populism - Barack Obama's victory is a manifestation not of Washington's need for change, but of America's. That is not how democracy works in England. Andrew O'Hagan victorydemocracychangeamerica
