Donoghue Emma Quotes

If you have written something that the film people want, like a book, it does give you a way in. ~ Emma Donoghue

Actually, Saint Peter was in jail, one time
"
I laugh. "Babies don't go in jail."
"This happened when they were all grown up."
I didn't know Baby Jesus grows up. ~ Emma Donoghue

If you're sorry, folks can tell. No use piling on the verbiage. ~ Emma Donoghue

I read a lot of social history. If I'm in an art gallery and a picture intrigues me, I immediately write down the title and I google it. I do a lot of googling and looking out for good stories. I can almost smell them sometimes. ~ Emma Donoghue

I think the sea's just rain and salt."
"Ever taste a tear?" asks Grandma.
"Yeah."
"Well, that's the same as the sea."
I still don't want to walk in it if it's tears. ~ Emma Donoghue

She's asleep, she can´t be mad in her sleep, can she? ~ Emma Donoghue

Well, they don't make their music just to pass the time," says Jenny, grinning. "Got to want something to sing about it, no? ~ Emma Donoghue

I've certainly seen stats that if you have a woman director or a woman screenwriter, the number of female characters goes way up. ~ Emma Donoghue

Scared is what you're feeling," says Ma, "but brave is what you're doing." "Huh?" "Scaredybrave. ~ Emma Donoghue

Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing. ~ Emma Donoghue

If he guessed his mistake, if he wanted me back, I thought, let him suffer and work for it as I had worked and suffered. Let him follow me over a mountain of iron and a lake of glass, and wear out three swords in my defense. But at my truest, lying awake trying to count the stars, I knew my prince would not follow. In my mind's eye I saw him in his palace, stroking the gold and silver and starry dresses which were fading now like leaves in winter, weeping for a spotless princess who did not exist, who had drowned in the river of time. ~ Emma Donoghue

In Room I was safe and Outside is the scary. ~ Emma Donoghue

The lightest touch might keep Mary there, rooted in this frozen alley. Instead, she stretched out her hand to the worn red ribbon in Doll's wig. Was it the same one, she wondered, the first one, the ribbon the child Mary had set her eyes and heart on at the Seven Dials, three long years ago? ~ Emma Donoghue

Once I was a stupid girl; now I am an angry woman. ~ Emma Donoghue

People are locked up in all sorts of ways. ~ Emma Donoghue

I read three books a week. ~ Emma Donoghue

I'm very keen. Adaptations of other people's work, too. I got fascinated by the adaptation process, so I think that'd be a really interesting task. I would happily write original screenplays as well. I think it's become one of my favorite genres. ~ Emma Donoghue

It occurs to Blanche that English doesn't have French's useful distinction between libre, meaning that something's unconstrained, and gratuit, meaning that it costs nothing. Free thought, free speech, free love: the English word that Arthur was so fond of obscures the price of things. ~ Emma Donoghue

thinks now. And sometimes, Little One. It's quite mysterious to ~ Emma Donoghue

My future was about to happen. ~ Emma Donoghue

So when one spring in spite of all this good advice I fell in love, it felt like disaster. I took a tiny bite and it exploded in my stomach. Love splashed through every cranny, hauled on every muscle, unlocked every joint. I was so full of astonishment, I felt ten feet tall. My shoulders itched as if wings might break through. ~ Emma Donoghue

Kissing a witch is a perilous business. Everybody knows it's ten times as dangerous as letting her touch your hand, or cut your hair, or steal your shoes. What simpler way is there than a kiss to give power a way into your heart? ~ Emma Donoghue

You're meant to have an unhappy childhood to be a writer, but there's a lot to be said for a very happy one that just lets you get on with it. ~ Emma Donoghue

Not beautiful, not brilliant, no longer young. ~ Emma Donoghue

There's no neutral language about travel. Either travel is described in ways that make it sound kind of shallow or just glossy or silly or a way for rich people to spend their time; or else travel is often described in quite derogatory ways, you know, like immigrants swarming across borders, for instance. ~ Emma Donoghue

When people write to me with stories, they are never ones that work for me. There's something mysterious about which ones catch you. ~ Emma Donoghue

People have no idea of the things that don't happen to them - the lives they're not living, the deaths stalking them - and thank Christ for that. Hard enough to get through each day without glimpsing all the hovering possibilities, like insects thickening the air. ~ Emma Donoghue

Every parent has those moments where they look at their child and think, 'There's a demon in those eyes and no one can see it but me!' ~ Emma Donoghue

Sometimes words were like glass that broke in her mouth. ~ Emma Donoghue

People don't always want to be with people. It gets tiring. ~ Emma Donoghue

This is a bad story."
"Sorry. I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have told you."
"No, you should," I say.
"But - "
"I don't want there to be bad stories and me not know them. ~ Emma Donoghue

I'm constantly saying, 'I read a fascinating article in 'The New Yorker' ... ' I say it so often that sometimes I think I have nothing interesting to say myself, I merely regurgitate 'The New Yorker.' ~ Emma Donoghue

All the women I knew carried some kind of blade, though they were not all metal, or even visible. Whether something had happened to them, or whether they had only anticipated it, it kept them awake the occasional night ~ Emma Donoghue

I was not exploiting any real individual's story in writing ROOM, of course I was aware that my novel, by commenting on such situations, would run the risk of falling into those traps of voyeurism, sensationalism and sentimentality. ~ Emma Donoghue

[She] was easy to enjoy but hard to know."
...
"It's unbearable, the not knowing. ~ Emma Donoghue

What writing ROOM taught me was that I know exactly how to be the perfect mother, but I'm not willing to do it for more than ten minutes at a time. ~ Emma Donoghue

I chop the broccoli into pieces with ZigZag Knife, sometimes I swallow some when Ma's not looking and she says, "Oh, no, where's that big bit gone?" but she's not really mad because raw things make us extra alive. ~ Emma Donoghue

We spend most of our lives holding on to objects, he thought, and finally they fall from our cold dead hands and those who tidy up after us have the worry of what to do with all this stuff. ~ Emma Donoghue

Sometimes when persons say definitely it sounds actually less true. ~ Emma Donoghue

(Really, thought Lib, who ever died exultingly? Whatever fool penned that phrase had never sat by a bed with his ears pricked for the last rasp.) Aged ~ Emma Donoghue

Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons. ~ Emma Donoghue

Before I had kids, I thought you should never lie to a kid. But now I've had them, I realize you almost lie to them by definition, because if you're trying to summarize something for your 1-year-old, you put it in very simple terms. You only gradually complicate the explanation as they get older. ~ Emma Donoghue

If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could. ~ Emma Donoghue

A lady lion-tamer put her head in a lion's mouth last week, and he bit it off. If a lion attempted to put his head in my mouth I expect I would do the same. ~ Emma Donoghue

A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places. ~ Emma Donoghue

It's painful to consider anything but writing. ~ Emma Donoghue

Now that I've got a way in [to the industry] - because it can feel a bit like, "How can I possibly write a film?" - but now that I've got at least some experience in the film world, I'd absolutely love to do it again. ~ Emma Donoghue

I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was. ~ Emma Donoghue

You cannot predict literary success; the only way you can possibly aim for it is to do your thing and do it well. ~ Emma Donoghue

It's weird to have something that's mine-not-Ma's. Everything else is both of ours. I guess my body is mine and the ideas that happen in my head. But my cells are made out of her cells so I'm kind of hers. ~ Emma Donoghue

I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person's point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I'm not naturally good at strong plot. ~ Emma Donoghue

The film world is far more male-dominated. I mean, the numbers are staggering at the level of how many people on set there are, and almost all the trades in film, there's a lot more men. So I can see without anyone intending to be biased [that] we have kind of a collective choosing of men's stories and a collective of taking men's stories seriously. ~ Emma Donoghue

It stands to reason that those who assault nature will suffer at her hands in the end. ~ Emma Donoghue

I think there are few films out there that take motherhood seriously. ~ Emma Donoghue

By her family circle. That was my phrase, one that could include me by some stretch of the imagination; 'circle' sounded too symmetrical, but it would have to do. ~ Emma Donoghue

What started Baby Jesus growing in Mary's tummy was an angel zoomed down, like a ghost but a really cool one with feathers. Mary was all surprised, she said, "How can this be?" and then, "OK let it be." When Baby Jesus popped out of her vagina on Christmas she put him in a manger but not for the cows to chew, only to warm him up with their blowing because he was magic. ~ Emma Donoghue

Stories are a different kind of true. ~ Emma Donoghue

Perhaps we get, not what we deserve, but what we demand. ~ Emma Donoghue

I'm a huge planner, more and more so as the years go by. ~ Emma Donoghue

I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga. ~ Emma Donoghue

Daffy bent down suddenly, and picked a small startled white flower. "Anemone," he said, handing it over; he made her repeat the word until she had it right. "Find me a silk to match that. ~ Emma Donoghue

...of the emperor whose gorgeous clockwork bird had seized up in the end; on his deathbed he'd called for the dark-feathered nightingale, knowing he never should have chosen a shiny substitute, because nothing but her real song could save him now. Was there any music that would bring back memories once they were lost in the fog? What were we, once our stories had drifted off like smoke? ~ Emma Donoghue

Everybody's damaged by something."
― Emma Donoghue, Room ~ Emma Donoghue

Perhaps there is no providence, no fate, no grand plan, she thinks now. Perhaps we dig our own traps and lie down in them. ~ Emma Donoghue

You must feel an almost pathological need - understandably - to stand guard between your son and the world." "Yeah, it's called being a mother." Ma nearly snarls it. ~ Emma Donoghue

A Nightingale!" he marvelled. Ah, so Matron had told him that much. Lib was always shy of introducing the great lady's name into conversation and loathed the whimsical title that had come to be attached to all those Miss N. had trained, as if they were dolls cast in her heroic mould. "Yes, I had the honour of serving under her at Scutari." "Noble labour." It ~ Emma Donoghue

Evolution protects those who protect themselves. ~ Emma Donoghue

except one bit about a movie with werewolves and a woman bursting like a balloon is just special effects, that's drawing on computers. ~ Emma Donoghue

But the thing is, slavery's not a new invention. And solitary confinement - did you know, in America we've got more than twenty-five thousand prisoners in isolation cells? ~ Emma Donoghue

I'll be in Heaven getting your room ready. ~ Emma Donoghue

She gets sick of things fast, it's from being an adult. ~ Emma Donoghue

I tell you frankly, Mrs. Damer, the more I see of different nations, the less sure I feel about the pre-eminence of my own. ~ Emma Donoghue

Better to drown in the surf than stand idly by the shore. ~ Emma Donoghue

Everyone's got a different story. ~ Emma Donoghue

Any subject we exclude from fiction will drop from our culture's memory. ~ Emma Donoghue

People move around so much in the world, things get lost. ~ Emma Donoghue

I think she was too tired to play anymore, she was in a hurry to get to Heaven so she didn't wait, why didn't she wait for me? ~ Emma Donoghue

Thank you." Lib tried to think of some more conversational note to end on. "It's always intrigued me," she said, letting her voice rise, "why you Sisters of Mercy are called walking nuns." "We walk out into the world, you see, Mrs. Wright. We take the usual vows of any order - poverty, chastity, obedience - but also a fourth, service." Lib had never heard the nun say so much before. "What kind of service?" Anna broke in: "To the sick, the poor, and the ignorant." "Well remembered, child," said the nun. "We vow to be of use." As ~ Emma Donoghue

On the whole I am inclined to think that a witch should not kiss. Perhaps it is the not being kissed that makes her a witch; perhaps the source of her power is the breath of loneliness around her. ~ Emma Donoghue

What does a promise mean, when it's made to a monster? ~ Emma Donoghue

When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything ~ Emma Donoghue

They used to draw a skull at the bottom of a tankard, so when you'd drained it you'd be reminded you were going to die someday. ~ Emma Donoghue

You know who you belong to, Jack?"
"Yeah."
"Yourself."
He's wrong, actually, I belong to Ma. ~ Emma Donoghue

The crow flew closer, as if to hear its praises. ~ Emma Donoghue

You must have been tortured by the memory of everything Jack didn't even know to want. Friends, school, grass, swimming, rides at the fair ... " "Why does everyone go on about fairs?" Ma's voice is all hoarse. "When I was a kid I hated fairs." The woman does a little laugh. Ma ~ Emma Donoghue

But to sever all your connections, professional as well as personal..." Lib fumbled for words. "Wouldn't it be like a little death?"
Byrne nodded. "I believe emigration generally is that. The price of a new life. ~ Emma Donoghue

Who knows what we all are before anything happens? ~ Emma Donoghue

It seemed to him that there was some urgency in the air, but then he always felt like that in February: a sense of something breaking out through his skin. ~ Emma Donoghue

Ah yes, the paradox of publicity is that even as we do it, we know it's killing off the chance of another reader happening across our book in the ideal state of innocence. ~ Emma Donoghue

Driving home I see the playground but it's all wrong, the swings are on the opposite side. "Oh, Jack, that's a different one," says Grandma. There's playgrounds in every town." Lots of the world seems to be a repeat. ~ Emma Donoghue

Colleen; that was what the Irish seemed to call every young female ~ Emma Donoghue

The watch has altered the situation that's being watched. ~ Emma Donoghue

May there be no frost on your potatoes, nor worms in your cabbage. ~ Emma Donoghue

I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it. ~ Emma Donoghue

I think it would be a shame for any writer to let their publishers in any way corral them into a single genre. ~ Emma Donoghue

I look back one more time. It's like a crater, a hole where something happened. ~ Emma Donoghue

Was that hard-hearted? Well, so what if it was. She'd been through enough to harden anyone. It was none of her choosing; all she'd done was clung on to her life like a spar from a shipwreck. Better to be hardened than crushed to nothing. ~ Emma Donoghue

I'd love to watch TV all the time, but it rots our brains. Before I came down from Heaven Ma left it on all day long and got turned into a zombie that's like a ghost but walks 'thump thump.' So now she always switches off after one show, then the cells multiply again in the day and we can watch another show after dinner and grow more brains in our sleep. ~ Emma Donoghue

A lot of the world seems to repeat itself ~ Emma Donoghue

Same old notes, Blanche thinks at one point, but arranged into unfamiliar music. ~ Emma Donoghue