Susanna Clarke (Susanna Mary Clarke) Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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The first thing my writing ever earned me wasn't an advance on a book; it wasn't a fee for an article or anything like that. It was, in fact, a residency at Hedgebrook Farm.
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Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it.
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Nothing endures but personal qualities.
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All writing is that structure of revelation. There's something you want to find out. If you know everything up front in the beginning, you really don't need to read further if there's nothing else to find out.
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Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.
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I was very, very little - it was the first time I ever cooked on my own, with my mother's supervision - and I made scrambled eggs. I felt so accomplished, like magic!
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I love writing. Given a choice, after directing for all these years, and if given an army of talented directors, I would not direct at all.
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Arendt did have a certain snobbishness, though in some of her writing she expressed more democratic attitudes.
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I spent a lot of time doing really unimportant work as an actor. It was important when I started writing that I obviously make it entertaining, or no one is going to go see it - but to really make you think, that is my goal.
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I think making the referee aware of a situation, there is nothing wrong with that.
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But in the meantime I became accustomed to the writing life and it would be hard to change now - partly because of the salary cut if I went to my other love, teaching; and partly because I still have stories to tell, even though it isn't all that fun doing the work anymore.
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If I let myself go, nothing will get done.
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Storytelling is storytelling. Good stories need compelling characters and interesting conflicts. That's the bottom line no matter what medium you're writing for.
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I think the beauty of the writing of 'Game of Thrones' is not that the characters are fearless; it's how they overcome their fear, you know?
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A lot of the songs on '2' are pretty personal, but even if I'm writing about something like that, I still tend to keep it pretty simple and open-ended. I like the idea of people listening to my album and it meaning something to me but maybe meaning something else to them.
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Local markets for literary fiction remain underdeveloped; the metropolis often holds out the only real possibility of a professional writing career.
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I don't have many friends. It's not because I'm a misanthrope. It's because I'm reserved. I'm self-contained. I get all my adventures in my head when I'm writing my books.
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When I first have an idea, I'll spit-ball it with my husband: he's my beautiful ideas sounding board. I usually have a year deadline from start to finish, so I'll piss about for three months and pretend to get started. Then there's four to six months of actual writing and, after that, submissions, edits, and eventually a finished product.
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I don't look anything like my mother, except when I'm Lafayette. I look like my father.
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I must say, I always - from experience, when I watch TV shows and I see characters leave without a proper explanation or leave with not enough time, I get irritated. I like it when there's a clean-cut reason or a defining moment where they have to go. Whether that's death or not, I think that's subjective.
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I was the ladies' man in school. I always had friends; people looked up to me.
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I have seen the very bottom of life: I was so afraid I wouldn’t be funny anymore. I just knew that I would lose my zaniness and my sense of humor. But I didn’t. Recovery turned out to be a wonderful thing.
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A piece of writing is like a piece of magic. You create something out of nothing.
