There are so few people given us to love. I want to tell my daughters this, that each time you fall in love it is important, even at nineteen. Especially at nineteen. And if you can, at nineteen, count the people you love on one hand, you will not, at forty, have run out of fingers on the other. There are so few people given us to love and they all stick.

Anne Enright

Categorized in : Running Daughter Falling In Love

People do not change, they are merely revealed.

Anne Enright

people

I am interested in levels of brain discourse. How articulate are the voices in your head? You know, there's a different voice for the phone, and a different voice if you're talking in bed. When you're starting off with a narrator, it's interesting to think, where is their voice coming from, what part of their brain?

Anne Enright

phones talking thinking

There's quite a big gap when it comes to that dual identity of mother and child, or even a pregnant woman, or a nursing woman. It kind of begs the question of that very strong Western idea of the individual self.

Anne Enright

strong mother children

I’m really lucky with the people around me. They know me, so they don’t confuse the issues really. They know what a book is and they know who I am and they know the difference between the two.

Anne Enright

who-i-am two book

Imagine that you are dying. If you had a terminal disease would you finish this book? Why not? The thing that annoys this 10-weeks-to-live self is the thing that is wrong with the book. So change it. Stop arguing with yourself. Change it. See? Easy. And no one had to die.

Anne Enright

dying self book

There are men who would do anything, asleep, and I'm not sure what stops them when they wake. I do not know how they draw the line.

Anne Enright

lines dream men

Try to be accurate about stuff.

Anne Enright

accuracy stuff trying

Only bad writers think that their work is really good.

Anne Enright

good-writing writing thinking

You write a book and you finish the book. That's your job done, right? You win the Booker and you have a whole new job. You have to be the thing, right? So instead of writing the story, you somehow are the story. And that I found that sort of terrible.

Anne Enright

writing jobs book

Description is hard. Remember that all description is an opinion about the world. Find a place to stand.

Anne Enright

opinion writing world

Write whatever way you like. Fiction is made of words on a page; reality is made of something else. It doesn't matter how "real" your story is, or how "made up": what matters is its necessity.

Anne Enright

what-matters real writing

God, I hate my family, these people I never chose to love, but love all the same.

Anne Enright

i-hate hate people

Resistless change, when powerless to improve, Can only mar.

Anne Enright

mars powerless change

A novel is written not to be judged, but experienced.

Anne Enright

judged written novel

We do not always like the people we love- we do not always have that choice.

Anne Enright

choices people

The way to write a book is to actually write a book. A pen is useful, typing is also good. Keep putting words on the page.

Anne Enright

pages writing book

Having kids is very difficult to do on your own, and it's really crazy difficult to think you're doing it as a team and to find out that you're not actually part of a team.

Anne Enright

team crazy kids

When you find yourself alone, or in a transition, you dream more. These are also the times when you read books.

Anne Enright

finding-yourself dream book

There are little thoughts in your head that can grow until they eat your entire mind. Just tiny little thoughts--they are like a cancer, there is no telling what triggers the spread, or who will be struck, and why some get it and others are spared.

Anne Enright

cancer mind littles

I have no place left to live but in my own heart.

Anne Enright

left my-own heart