Lily King Quotes
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Anthropologists are great at novelistic observations. I would be thrilled if this novel would encourage anthropologists to write what they see in fictional form.
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I've always thought of writing as sort of active communication.
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Was it possible in any relationship to not disappoint, to do anything more than only briefly rekindle the initial fatal illusion?
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I always had this put-together family, and I always identified as the outsider. And that's a position where I feel most comfortable, and yet I feel an incredible longing to belong. That is really a strong feeling from my childhood - a desire to be part of a group.
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I've also done things that put me in odd situations.
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To go back to my childhood, I experienced lots of different family cultures, all the while feeling like none of them were mine.
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Every fictional thing I wrote gave me strength to write another and another. By the end I wasn't remaining true to anything but the story I wanted to tell.
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When I pick up a pencil, that this is a rough draft. This is not going anywhere, and no one's going to see it. You have permission to make all the mistakes you want. It signals freedom to me, and it signals mistakes. Then when I put it on the computer, a different part of my brain kicks in and I really evaluate every single word and sentence and make decisions. I like that step of polishing while I'm rewriting the entire thing, not just cutting and pasting. Really putting in every word and making a decision: is this something I can stand by?
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I'm always interested in a claustrophobic situation where people might be powerless to do things. My first three novels were all about families. Things that happen in a house within a family, because you're a child or because you want to keep the family together, you suffer things you might not have had to suffer if you weren't in that situation.
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Perhaps all science is merely self-investigation.
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When you have people who get angry quickly, you have to learn the rules to avoid being in that situation.