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Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue Quotes

Playwright

Emma Donoghue is an Irish-Canadian author renowned for her plays and novels. Her works are celebrated for their deep psychological insights and unique narrative style. Born on October 24, 1969, Donoghue's plays have been performed in several countries, and her novels have been translated into multiple languages.

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All Book Knows Writing Thinking Way People Rooms Stories Film Ifs

Famous Emma Donoghue Quotes

“Stories are a different kind of true.”

Writing Kind Different Stories Truth Storytelling Different Kinds Screenwriters

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“It's all real in Outside, everything there is, because I saw an airplane in the blue between the clouds. Ma and me can't go there because we don't know the secret code, but it's real all the same. Before I didn't know to be mad that we can't open Door, my head was too small to have Outside in it.”

Knows Real Secret Saws Doors Blue Mad Clouds Code Airplane

Author:Emma Donoghue

“We're standing on the deck that's all wooden like the deck of a ship. There's fuzz on it, little bundles. Grandma says it's some kind of pollen from a tree. "Which one?" I'm staring up at all the differents. "Can't help you there, I'm afraid." In Room we knowed what everything was called but in the world there's so much, persons don't even know the names.”

Knows World Kind Littles Persons Helping Names Rooms Tree Standing Ships Staring Grandma Deck Bundles Pollen

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I watch his hands, they're lumpy but clever. "Is there a word for adults when they aren't parents?" Steppa laughs. "Folks with other things to do?”

Hands Parent Watches Laughing Adults Folks Clever Things To Do

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“Me and Ma have a deal, we're going to try everything one time so we know what we like.”

Knows Trying Deals One Time

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“When I tell her what I’m thinking and she tells me what she’s thinking, our each ideas jumping into the other’s head, like coulouring blue crayon on top of yellow that makes green.”

Thinking Ideas Blue Green Yellow Jumping Crayon

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“Everyone's got a different story.”

Different Stories

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“People don't always want to be with people. It gets tiring.”

People Want Tire

Author:Emma Donoghue

“People move around so much in the world, things get lost.”

People World Moving Lost

Author:Emma Donoghue

“Everybody's damaged by something.”

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“At the door, there was one of those moment when two people realize that they like each other more than they know each other. This is nicer than the opposite situation, but more awkward. You try to remember the protocol for touching. You hate to gush, or presume to much, yet you are unwilling to let the moment pass without without some gesture”

People Knows Trying Two Moments Remember Hate Realizing Situation Doors Opposites Touching Gestures Awkward Unwilling Protocol Touching You

Book:Hood

Source: Hood

“We used to call it her Cinderella complex, because often when she had agreed to go out in the evening she would be seized by panic and announce that she had nothing to wear.”

Would Be Used Complexes Evening Panic

Book:Hood

Source: Hood

“...Sometimes I suspect that what had really happened was that we became more resigned, more cynical, raised our pain thresholds as we lowered our expectations. All in all, settled for less.”

Sometimes Pain Happened Expectations Raised Suspects Cynical Threshold Resigned Pain Threshold

Book:Hood

Source: Hood

“...real loneliness is having no one to miss. Think yourself lucky you've known something worth missing.”

Thinking Real Known Missing Loneliness Lucky Lucky You

Book:Hood

Source: Hood

“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.”

Knows Want Should Stories Sorry Should I

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“There are some tales not for telling, whether because they are too long, too precious, too laughable, too painful, too easy to need telling or too hard to explain. After all, after years and travels my secrets are all I have left to chew on in the night.”

Needs Years Long Hard Night Left Easy Secret Painful Tales Laughable

Author:Emma Donoghue

“There's not a thing wrong with you, you're right the whole way through.”

Way Whole Inspiration

Author:Emma Donoghue

“He [Ma's Tooth] was part of her a minute ago but now he's not. Just a thing.”

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“I remember manners, that's when people are scared to make other persons mad.”

People Persons Remember Mad Scared Manners Reticence

Author:Emma Donoghue

“[E]verywhere I'm looking at kids, adults mostly don't seem to like them, not even the parents do. They call the kids gorgeous and so cute, they make the kids do the thing all over again so they can take a photo, but they don't want to actually play with them, they'd rather drink coffee talking to other adults. Sometimes there's a small kid crying and the Ma of it doesn't even hear.”

Want Sometimes Play Seems Kids Parent Talking Cry Drink Adults Coffee Cute Gorgeous

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“Writing stories is my way of scratching that itch: my escape from the claustrophobia of individuality. It lets me, at least for a while, live more than one life, walk more than one path. Reading, of course, can do the same.”

Way Writing Stories Courses Reading Can Do Walks Path Let Me Individuality My Way Writing Stories Claustrophobia

Author:Emma Donoghue

“And as the years flowed by, some villagers told travelers of a beast and a beauty who lived in the castle and could be seen walking on the battlements, and others told of two beauties, and others, of two beasts.”

Years Two Walking Beast Traveler Castles

Author:Emma Donoghue

“It’s called mind over matter. If we don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” When a bit of me hurts, I always mind.”

Ifs Mind Matter Bits Hurt

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“The great thing about a short story is that it doesn't have to trawl through someone's whole life; it can come in glancingly from the side.”

Whole Stories Sides Whole Life Great Things Insightful Short Story

Author:Emma Donoghue

“Sometimes when persons say definitely it sounds actually less true.”

Persons Sometimes Sound

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I've been writing full-time since I was 23.”

Author:Emma Donoghue

“The idea was to focus on the primal drama of parenthood: the way from moment to moment you swing from comforter to tormentor, just as kids simultaneously light up our lives and drive us nuts. I was trying to capture that strange, bipolar quality of parenthood. For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have.”

Way Trying Ideas Moments Light Kids Parent Emotion Quality Focus Our Lives Produce Strange Drama Normal Extremes Parenthood Capture Nuts Swings Primal Bipolar Light Up Being A Parent Comforter

Author:Emma Donoghue

“Nowadays, 'invisibility' was supposed to be the big problem, but the way I saw it was, all that mattered was to be visible to yourself.”

Way Problem Bigs Saws Supposed To Be Visible Big Problems Invisibility

Book:Hood

Source: Hood

“For all that being a parent is normal statistically, it's not normal psychologically. It produces some of the most extreme emotions you'll ever have...”

Parent Emotion Produce Normal Extremes Being A Parent

Author:Emma Donoghue

“A memoir is always the most authentic telling of a situation, but a novel gets to different places.”

Different Situation Novel Memoir Different Place

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I got in the habit of giving away a book as soon as I've finished it because I lived in a housing co-op at Cambridge and had no space to keep books.”

Giving Book Space Habit Finished Housing Cambridge

Author:Emma Donoghue

“Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene.”

Knows Needs I Can Happens Novel Produce Particular Scene Structure Planning Plot Chapters Marvelous

Author:Emma Donoghue

“She leaped into space, high, higher than she'd ever been in her life. She came down with a clean snap, and the crowd scattered like birds from the swing of her feet.”

Space Feet Higher Bird Clean Crowds Swings Snaps

Book:Slammerkin

Source: Slammerkin

“Once I spent a whole day there, a blade of grass in each hand to anchor me to the warm earth. I watched the sun rise, pass over my head and set. Ladybirds mated on my knuckle; a shrew nibbled a hole in my stocking while I tried not to laugh. Such a day was worth any punishment.”

Whole Hands Earth Laughing Sun Bird Warm Punishment Holes Grass Blades Anchors Stockings Knuckles Sun Rise Blades Of Grass Shrews

Author:Emma Donoghue

“When I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and Outside being totally real. Now I’m in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn’t real at all.”

Real Turns Five Four Tvs

Book:Room: Picador Classic

Source: Room: Picador Classic

“Change for your own sake, if you must, not for what you imagine another will ask of you.”

Ifs Asks Imagine Sake

Author:Emma Donoghue

“Any parent knows how to be the ideal parent.”

Knows Parent Know How Ideals

Author: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!”

Thinking Looks Children Moments Eye Parent Demon

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I am clumsy, a late and nervous driver, and despise all sports except a little gentle dancing or yoga.”

Littles Sports Late Yoga Dancing Nervous Gentle Drivers Despise Clumsy

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I hate desks; they make me feel like a child doing homework.”

Feels Children Hate I Hate Desks Homework

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I read three books a week.”

Book Three Week

Author: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.”

Thinking Way Would Be Shame Genre Publishers

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I'm a huge planner, more and more so as the years go by.”

Years Huge Planners

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I'm finding that success is way more time-consuming than failure ever was.”

Way Findings More Time Consuming Time Consuming

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I'm named after Jane Austen's Emma, and I've always been able to relate to her. She's strong, confident but quite tactless.”

Able Strong Relate Jane Emma Austen

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I'm really not one of these procrastinators who cleans the house in order to put off writing, but life gets in the way.”

Way Writing Order House Procrastinator

Author:Emma Donoghue

“I've always been religiously inclined, but it doesn't come up in most of my books.”

Author:Emma Donoghue

“Identity politics are wearisome; you don't want to go on speaking for any one group as a writer.”

Want Groups Identity Goes On Identity Politics

Author:Emma Donoghue

“It's painful to consider anything but writing.”

Writing Painful

Author:Emma Donoghue

“The way to my heart is through Belgian milk chocolate.”

Way Heart My Heart Chocolate Milk Belgians

Author:Emma Donoghue

About the Author

Born: October 24, 1969
Known for: Playwright
Quotes: 155

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