WWII was, without exaggeration, the biggest event in all of human history, and it is still within living memory. Chris Cleave More Quotes by Chris Cleave More Quotes From Chris Cleave If your face is swollen from the severe beatings of life, smile and pretend to be a fat man. Chris Cleave your-face faces men It was hard not to be full of hope Chris Cleave hard Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive Chris Cleave alive stories mean This thing with being lovers, it isn't like being married. Chris Cleave being-married married lovers I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself. Chris Cleave wreckage built I'm not happy with just repeating myself. Chris Cleave not-happy I like to push characters to extremes so they have to make really tough decisions and there is no life more extreme than that of an athlete. Chris Cleave decision athlete character The only bad days as a writer are the ones when you are too cowardly or too lazy to sit down at the keyboard and give it everything you have. Chris Cleave lazy bad-day giving I think the recent cluster of WWII novels is so good because we have reached an optimal distance from the war. Just as a lens has its focal length, the novel also has its best distance from the action. Chris Cleave distance war thinking Studying psychology is fun because you're always looking for the same things I think a writer should be looking for, which is the story behind the story. Chris Cleave psychology fun thinking It's extremely hard for athletes to accept what's happened to them sometimes. It's hard to be beaten by a small margin, and I've spoken with athletes who, for years afterward, have been tormented by the knowledge that, had they done something ever so slightly different, they could have been one-ten-thousandth of a second quicker. Chris Cleave different athlete years I think that there's something extremely beautiful about the Olympic ideal and its motto - 'Swifter, higher, stronger' - it's such a beautiful motto, and it celebrates everything which is the antithesis of death and dissolution and entropy. Chris Cleave stronger beautiful thinking We no longer need to show people being brave: instead, we can examine how they became brave. We can assume that they didn't start out that way. If we allow that they started out just like us, then their journey into courage becomes both more fascinating and more impressive. Chris Cleave journey brave people I think that the relationship between two top-level athletes who are rivals is one of the most fascinating human relationships to explore. It's always one atom away from being a tragedy. Chris Cleave athlete two thinking There's what people say, and there's what people mean, and I like to explore the difference between the two. Chris Cleave differences two mean The Daily Mail can't say 'asylum-seeker' without saying 'foreign criminal' in the same sentence. I'm sure it's practically editorial policy. Chris Cleave asylum-seekers daily-mail criminals My paternal grandmother drove ambulances during the regional Blitz, in Birmingham. Chris Cleave ambulance birmingham grandmother If I can't write it would be as if I died. Chris Cleave died would-be writing I'm really interested in people's decisions. Chris Cleave decision people I'm always determined that as a novelist I'm going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing. Chris Cleave research writing character
