I say "on principle" [regarding 'lesbian writer'] because whenever you get one of your minority labels applied, like "Irish Writer," "Canadian Writer," "Woman Writer," "Lesbian Writer" - any of those categories - you always slightly wince because you're afraid that people will think that means you're only going to write about Canada or Ireland, you know.

Emma Donoghue

Categorized in : Thinking Mean Writing

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.

Emma Donoghue

insightful stories sides

Ma's still nodding. "You're the one who matters, though. Just you." I shake my head till it's wobbling because there's no just me.

Emma Donoghue

nodding shakes matter

In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time...I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well...I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter all over the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.

Emma Donoghue

stressed house jobs

I read a lot of social history. If I'm in an art gallery and a picture intrigues me, I immediately write down the title and I google it. I do a lot of googling and looking out for good stories. I can almost smell them sometimes.

Emma Donoghue

smell writing art

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

Emma Donoghue

hurt matter mind

Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.

Emma Donoghue

breathe air book

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.

Emma Donoghue

night long years

Stories are a different kind of true.

Emma Donoghue

different truth writing

...sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words.

Emma Donoghue

sentences made

If I was made of cake I'd eat myself before somebody else could.

Emma Donoghue

cake ifs made

I think I know what it's like to have a family that the outside world sees as peculiar or lacking.

Emma Donoghue

peculiar world thinking

When I was a little kid I thought like a little kid, but now I'm five I know everything

Emma Donoghue

little-kid littles kids

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.

Emma Donoghue

castles two years

Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.

Emma Donoghue

brave courage feelings

Writing is nearly always a matter of finding whatever your brain needs to trick it into being creative, and in my case, a tiny little bit of fact just seems to work.

Emma Donoghue

creative brain writing

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

Emma Donoghue

loneliness real thinking

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

Emma Donoghue

teeth minutes

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

Emma Donoghue

scared mad people

I think ultimately the film 'Room' is a kind of hymn to motherhood and to the everyday heroism of parents who find their smiles in terrible times.

Emma Donoghue

hymns motherhood thinking

It's painful to consider anything but writing.

Emma Donoghue

painful writing