Sarah Dessen Quotes
Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.
Quotes to Explore
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We never had books at home, but my dad, seeing how keen I was to read, took me to Islington Library when I was about eight and we pulled out two - a Biggles and a science fiction novel. I never got the ace fighter pilot but fell in love with all things to do with the future and space. Isaac Asimov soon became my guiding star.
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I wrote my first novel in eighth grade for a boy named Kenny on whom I had an unrequited crush and who sat behind me in social studies.
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The novel is a seduction; a reader has to be seduced.
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In addition I wanted to write a Southern novel, because I'm a Southerner.
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We had to work five back-to-back shows, forty-five minutes on, fifteen minutes off. That's just an awful lot of singing.
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There's some awfully good things done today and some awful terrible things done today,
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Does one's integrity ever lie in what he is not able to do? I think that usually it does, for free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply. It is a mystery and one which a novel, even a comic novel, can only be asked to deepen.
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The idea of what it is like to lose everything is awful.
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Hello, Minister!" bellowed Percy, sending a neat jinx straight at Thicknesse, who dropped his wand and clawed at the front of his robes, apparently in awful discomfort. "Did I mention I'm resigning?
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It seems to me, correct me if I'm wrong, that there are an awful lot of people in Manhattan. And it's getting worse.
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I have an awful lot to learn. My dream is to get better and better as I get older.
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Turks continued their previous policy. They would not stop committing massive and most awful massacres that even Leng Timur would not dare to do.
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I certainly wake up every morning and thank God that I'm not a novelist because the theater is tough, but novel writing is infinitely harder. Especially with the economics of serious fiction being what they are in America.
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I always think first about the nature of the story. When I had the idea for 'The Namesake,' I felt that it had to be a novel - it couldn't work as a story.
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History is present in all my novels. And whether I am directly talking about the sociological moment or just immersing my character in the environment, I am very aware of it.
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There are some varieties of fiction that I never touch - mystery stories, for instance, which I abhor, and historical novels. I also detest the so-called "powerful" novel - full of commonplace obscenities and torrents of dialog.
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An image often propels the novel, gets it started. For me, it's an image that has a lot of emotion connected to it.
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When I was 30 or so - by that time I had become an assistant D.A. - I decided I would try to write a novel. To be clear: I did not decide to become a novelist. Honestly, it never crossed my mind that I could actually earn a living as a professional novelist.
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I am saying this with all humility. I know him (Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad). I love him as a father and a leader. I have fought against him. And now I accept that he is the best man to lead Malaysia now.
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If the investors themselves are not sophisticated, if they themselves are not putting a lot of their own money to work, if they themselves don't understand the continuum of capital and how different parts of the capital structures react differently, then they're basically worthless. They're not going to give great advice to these entrepreneurs who then need it. So that is unfortunately the cycle we're in and we have to break the cycle.
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Racquetball was always number one but when our first child was born things I thought I cherished weren't as important. You put yourself in a position to win, but now you're extra careful. Because I never wanted my kids to see me losing. I wanted them to remember me winning...thought that would be cool.
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It was such a depressing time. I didn't look very depressed, maybe, but it was really dire. I made a conscious decision not to stop, but it could have gone the other way.
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Writing a novel is like childbirth: once you realize how awful it really is, you never want to do it again.
