“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.” WritingEndsStoriesWanted Author:Lily King
“To go back to my childhood, I experienced lots of different family cultures, all the while feeling like none of them were mine.” DifferentFeelingsCultureChildhoodMinesDifferent Families Author:Lily King
“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.” FeelsFeelingsTogetherDesireStrongGroupsChildhoodPositionComfortableLongingIncrediblesOutsidersStrong Feeling Author:Lily King
“When I finished graduate school, the first George Bush was president, and I really wanted to get out of the country. We'd just gone through the first Gulf War.” FirstsWarCountryWantedSchoolPresidentGoneFinishedGraduatesGraduate SchoolGulf War Author:Lily King
“I loved languages, and loved learning languages. It was fantastic. But I was alone there. I remember that time as a real Virginia Woolf time. More than any language it was her language that influenced me.” RealRememberLanguageFantasticVirginiaWoolfLearning Language Author:Lily King
“I had lived in France before graduate school, but because of Spain, I had a lot of the characters go and spend a good bit of time in Spain.” CharacterSchoolBitsFranceGraduatesSpainGraduate School Author:Lily King
“I'm always interested in a claustrophobic situation where people might be powerless to do things.” PeopleMightSituationPowerless Author:Lily King
“I love this idea of trying to create that intellectual eroticism. That was what I was working toward all along.” TryingIdeasIntellectual Author:Lily King
“I love reading fiction about people who are connecting intellectually. I find that exhilarating.” PeopleReadingFictionConnectingExhilaratingLove Of ReadingReading Fiction Author:Lily King
“You write the facts as you see them, and there isn't a lull with a lot of description. No wonder people like to write about murder mysteries and dead bodies!” PeopleWritingFactsBodyWonderMysteryMurderDescriptionLullsMurder Mysteries Author:Lily King
“Anthropologists are great at novelistic observations. I would be thrilled if this novel would encourage anthropologists to write what they see in fictional form.” IfsWritingWould BeFormNovelObservationAnthropologists Author:Lily King
“Anthropological fieldwork is so much like writing a novel. You don't know what the hell is going on.” KnowsWritingNovelHellFieldwork Author:Lily King
“Anthropology is separated from mass reading, and that is something that bothered Margaret Mead. She always said that she wrote everything for her grandmother, in a way that her grandmother could understand what she was saying.” WaySaidReadingMassGrandmotherBotheredAnthropologyMead Author:Lily King
“There are certain tribes in the middle Sepik that eat raw bat. A certain kind of raw bat is a delicacy.” KindCertainMiddleBatsTribesDelicacy Author:Lily King
“Ever since high school I've been writing in a spiral notebook, in pencil. Everything looks too polished on a computer when you start writing, and I can't really see it. I feel like the words are much more naked in pencil, on a notebook.” FeelsWritingLooksI CanSchoolComputerHigh SchoolNakedPencilsNotebookPolishedSpirals Author:Lily King
“I definitely feel that my brain works differently, and words come out differently, if I have a pencil in my hand, rather than if I have a keyboard.” IfsFeelsHandsBrainPencilsKeyboards Author:Lily King
“I tend to elongate the sentences as I'm writing and editing, and there is just something about the feeling of writing longhand that I really love.” WritingFeelingsSentencesEditing Author:Lily King
“It also signals to me, 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.” WantMistakePicksRoughPermissionSignalsPencilsRough Drafts Author:Lily King
“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.” PeopleChildrenTogetherSufferingHouseSituationNovelPowerlessFamily Together Author:Lily King
“Anthropological fieldwork is so much like writing a novel. Granted, you don't have the physical disruption and disorientation, but writing a novel is like entering a new culture. You don't know what the hell is going on. And every day you feel like you have nothing, you're going nowhere. Or you feel that first it's going somewhere, but then you get into that horrible middle part.” WritingCultureNovelHellLike YouHorribleGranted Author:Lily King
“Ever since high school I've been writing in a spiral notebook, in pencil. Everything looks too polished on a computer when you start writing, and I can't really see it. I feel like the words are much more naked in pencil, on a notebook. I feel that my brain works differently, and words come out differently, if I have a pencil in my hand, rather than if I have a keyboard. I tend to add more in the margins. I tend to elongate the sentences as I'm writing and editing, and there is just something about the feeling of writing longhand that I really love.” WritingFeelingsSchoolBrainComputerHigh SchoolNotebook Author:Lily King
“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?” DifferentDecisionMistakeBrainCuttingComputerRoughSingle Word Author:Lily King
