Emma Donoghue Quotes & Sayings

Was that hard-hearted? Well, so what if it was. She'd been through enough to harden anyone. It was none of her choosing; all she'd done was clung on to her life like a spar from a shipwreck. Better to be hardened than crushed to nothing. — Emma Donoghue

Also everywhere 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. In — Emma Donoghue

The worn soles of Daffy's boots skidded on the icy stones. He'd been saving up for a new pair for Christmas, but then he'd come across an encyclopaedia in ten volumes, going cheap. Boots might last ten years, at best, but knowledge was eternal. — Emma Donoghue

It stands to reason that those who assault nature will suffer at her hands in the end. — Emma Donoghue

I was beautiful, or so my father told me. My oval mirror showed me a face with nothing written on it. I had suitors aplenty but wanted none of them: their doggish devotion seemed too easily won. I had an appetite for magic, even then. I wanted something improbably and perfect as a red rose just opening. — Emma Donoghue

Maybe I'm a human, but I'm a me-and-Ma as well. — Emma Donoghue

Daughter, he said in a voice like old wood breaking, can you ever forgive me?
I could only answer his question with one of my own. Putting my hand over his mouth, I whispered, Which of us would not sell all we had to stay alive? — Emma Donoghue

Is there a sense in which you miss being behind a locked door?" Ma turns to Morris. "Is she allowed to ask me such stupid questions?" The — Emma Donoghue

The days of my vanity are over and heaven knows they weren't happy enough to regret — Emma Donoghue

If you have written something that the film people want, like a book, it does give you a way in. — Emma Donoghue

Perhaps there is no providence, no fate, no grand plan, she thinks now. Perhaps we dig our own traps and lie down in them. — Emma Donoghue

I think the only difference between me and other people is that when I hear of an interesting historical incident, I immediately write it down and Google it. — Emma Donoghue

Miss N. had taught her nurses to watch carefully in order to understand what the ill required and provide it. Not medicine - that was the doctors' domain - but the things she argued were equally crucial to recovery: light, air, warmth, cleanliness, rest, comfort, nourishment, and conversation. — Emma Donoghue

So when one spring in spite of all this good advice I fell in love, it felt like disaster. I took a tiny bite and it exploded in my stomach. Love splashed through every cranny, hauled on every muscle, unlocked every joint. I was so full of astonishment, I felt ten feet tall. My shoulders itched as if wings might break through. — Emma Donoghue

(Really, thought Lib, who ever died exultingly? Whatever fool penned that phrase had never sat by a bed with his ears pricked for the last rasp.) Aged — Emma Donoghue

... where there's one there's ten.'
That's crazy math. — Emma Donoghue

Adults could be barefaced liars too, of course, and about no subject so much as their own bodies. In Lib's experience, those who wouldn't cheat a shopkeeper by a farthing would lie about how much brandy they drank or whose room they'd entered and what they'd done there. Girls bursting out of their stays denied their condition till the pangs gripped them. Husbands swore blind that their wives' smashed faces were none of their doing. Everybody was a repository of secrets. — Emma Donoghue

A lady lion-tamer put her head in a lion's mouth last week, and he bit it off. If a lion attempted to put his head in my mouth I expect I would do the same. — Emma Donoghue

It came to Daffy then, how easily the worst in oneself could rise up and strike a blow. How even the most enlightened man had little power over his own darkness. — Emma Donoghue

Good nurses follow rules," Lib growled, "but the best know when to break them. — Emma Donoghue

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

I have never been depressed or thrown a plate, which I attribute to the cathartic effects of writing books about people whose lives are more grueling than mine. — Emma Donoghue

I come out of an academic background, and I'm aware that what I'm doing is simultaneously research and fiction. I want to meet both those obligations. — Emma Donoghue

In my experience of ward nursing, two shifts are more conducive to sleep than three." "But — Emma Donoghue

Kids delight in 'magical thinking', whether in the form of the Tooth Fairy or the saints: whether you see these as comforting lies or eternal verities, they are part of how we help kids make sense of the world. — Emma Donoghue

Coffee's the most important thing they sell because most of us need it to keep us going, like gas in the car. — Emma Donoghue

The human mind needs boundaries. Without them it would fall in on itself, like a crushed honeycomb. — Emma Donoghue

And the flames are every colour of the rainbow."
"They can't be," observed Daffy.
"Well, they are," she said cheekily. "Have you been there, that you know so much about it?"
"No," said Daffy, very calm, "but I'd wager I know more than you about the chemical processes of combustion."
Mary rolled her eyes. Did he hope to dazzle her with syllables? — Emma Donoghue

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

The girl remembered London as a place of infinite freedom. Now it seemed she'd rented out her whole life to the Joneses in advance. Service had reduced her to a child, put her under orders to get up and lie down at someone else's whim; her days were spent obeying someone else's rules, working for someone else's profit. Nothing was Mary's anymore. Not even her time was hers to waste. — Emma Donoghue

I was highly aware, in writing [the book]ROOM, that there are unsavoury aspects to our interest in such cases, and I thought it was rather honester to include discussion of media representation in the novel itself than to cling to the high moral ground by merely avoiding scenes of voyeurism, for instance. — Emma Donoghue

I thought one way to try to hold on to the power was to write the script myself. That way, I could say to filmmakers, "I'm not asking you to hire me unseen. I'm just saying, 'Here's my script. Can we work together?'" So that worked out well. — Emma Donoghue

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. — Emma Donoghue

A lot of the world seems to repeat itself — Emma Donoghue

I looked in my mirror and saw, not myself, but every place I'd never been. — Emma Donoghue

People are locked up in all sorts of ways. — Emma Donoghue

That's what you got for being a servant of no ambition: a shrunken life, hung up like a gibbet as a warning to others. — Emma Donoghue

I think the sea's just rain and salt."
"Ever taste a tear?" asks Grandma.
"Yeah."
"Well, that's the same as the sea."
I still don't want to walk in it if it's tears. — Emma Donoghue

The hammock hangs on hooks in two trees at the very back of the yard, one is a shortish tree that's only twice my tall and bent over, one is a million times high with silvery leaves. — Emma Donoghue

But for me, Room is a peculiar (and no doubt heretical) battle between Mary and the Devil for young Jesus. If God sounds absent from that triangle, that's because I think that for a small child, God's love is represented, and proved, by mother-love. — Emma Donoghue

Driving home I see the playground but it's all wrong, the swings are on the opposite side. "Oh, Jack, that's a different one," says Grandma. There's playgrounds in every town." Lots of the world seems to be a repeat. — Emma Donoghue

Jack. He'd never give us a phone, or a window. "Ma takes my thumbs and squeezes them. "We are people in a book, and he wont let anybody else read it. — Emma Donoghue

I'm not at all snobby about book prizes and how they pollute the world of literature. Just like with the Olympics, a little bit of competition gets people truly engrossed in the business of literature. — Emma Donoghue

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

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

Kissing a witch is a perilous business. Everybody knows it's ten times as dangerous as letting her touch your hand, or cut your hair, or steal your shoes. What simpler way is there than a kiss to give power a way into your heart? — Emma Donoghue

Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing. — Emma Donoghue

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. — Emma Donoghue

One of them asked what was in my skirts to make them so heavy, and I said, Knives, and he took his hand off my thigh and never touched me again. — Emma Donoghue

My eyes dawdled across the missalette. I had never noticed before that the official title of the 'Lord have mercy' prayer was the gracious phrase 'Invitation to Sorrow'. Hey there, Sorrow, how've you been keeping? Come on in. If your bike doesn't have lights you can always crash on our sofa tonight. Oh, so you'll be staying a while, Sorrow? Planning to get to know me better? Grand, so. There's tea in the pot. All — Emma Donoghue

Keep your heart infinitesimally small and sorrow will never spy it, never plunge, never flap away with your heart in her claws. — Emma Donoghue

There's not a thing wrong with you, you're right the whole way through. — Emma Donoghue

So then she took me home, or I took her home, or we were both somehow taken to the closest thing. — Emma Donoghue

I'm a huge planner, more and more so as the years go by. — Emma Donoghue

What this good man had sworn to protect me from was not the same as what I feared. I trusted that he would never let anything hurt me, but he would never let anything touch me either. — Emma Donoghue

It's called mind over matter. If we don't mind, it doesn't matter. — Emma Donoghue

Everybody's damaged by something. — Emma Donoghue

If you're sorry, folks can tell. No use piling on the verbiage. — Emma Donoghue

That's tree persons in the room now and two of us, that equals five, it's nearly full of arms and legs and chests. They're all saying till I hurt. Stop all saying at the same time. — Emma Donoghue

[She] was easy to enjoy but hard to know."
...
"It's unbearable, the not knowing. — Emma Donoghue

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. — Emma Donoghue

Before I had kids, I thought you should never lie to a kid. But now I've had them, I realize you almost lie to them by definition, because if you're trying to summarize something for your 1-year-old, you put it in very simple terms. You only gradually complicate the explanation as they get older. — Emma Donoghue

But what on earth had possessed her, to take a wagon this far beyond nowhere? When — Emma Donoghue

I actually tried to think of the story [Room] in gender-neutral terms at first and said to myself, "OK, would this work if it were a man?" Well no, you can't make a man pregnant, so it's got to be a woman. — Emma Donoghue

You know the way there are two kinds of actors - the De Niro kind who's always De Niro, and then somebody like Daniel Day-Lewis, who transforms himself eerily? Well, I aim to be the Daniel Day-Lewis kind of writer. I don't have a house style. — Emma Donoghue

In the yard of the inn, Daffy Cadwaladyr introduced himself. "Short for Davyd," he said pleasantly.
The Londoner looked as if she'd never heard a sillier name in her life. — Emma Donoghue

Well, they don't make their music just to pass the time," says Jenny, grinning. "Got to want something to sing about it, no? — 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. — Emma Donoghue

There may be certain genres that men dominate, but fiction not so much. The question of prizes is tricky because there are so many prizes. — Emma Donoghue

I needed to do a lot of saying no. I had a lot of [interest] from people who I just didn't think were quite right for it. And I didn't want a bad film to be made of the book, either a sentimental one or a creepy one, so I did a lot of, "No thank you." Then when the right filmmaker came along, yes, I suppose I presented myself very much as wanting to be the writer. — Emma Donoghue

All I think when I look at you is hallelujah — 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? — Emma Donoghue

All this reverential - I'm not a saint." Ma's voice is getting loud again. "I wish people would stop treating us like we're the only ones who ever lived through something terrible. I've been finding stuff on the Internet you wouldn't believe. — Emma Donoghue

One thing I like about historical fiction is that I'm not constantly focusing on me, or people like me; you're obliged to concentrate on lives that are completely other than your own. — Emma Donoghue

Unknown Assassin, says the headline. Blanche skips over the details she already knows. How bizarre to see what she lived through last night turned into an item tucked between stock prices and Crazy Horse whupping the army at Little Bighorn. — 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. — Emma Donoghue

Happiness as un-pin-downable as a louse: you feel the tickle of its passage but your fingers close on nothing. — Emma Donoghue

I wrote the novel [Room], and then I thought, "This could work on film, and I want to be the one to do it." So I went ahead and drafted it. — Emma Donoghue

I remember a period where my publisher said to me, 'Look, your historical work is selling much better than your contemporary work, so please give us more historicals.' — Emma Donoghue

Sometimes when persons say definitely it sounds actually less true. — Emma Donoghue

I may have had moments of regret in my life, but you know, they wouldn't add up to an hour. — Emma Donoghue

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

It came to Mary now that her mother had been right, after all; Mary had been born for this. In sixteen years she'd shot along the shortest route she could find between life and death, as the crow flew. — Emma Donoghue

My names were hand-me-downs too: girl, the creature, or, most often, you there. — Emma Donoghue

The crow flew closer, as if to hear its praises. — Emma Donoghue

I guess the time gets spread very thin like
butter over all 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.
Also everywhere 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. — Emma Donoghue

But no, I used all my brave up. — Emma Donoghue

You're meant to have an unhappy childhood to be a writer, but there's a lot to be said for a very happy one that just lets you get on with it. — Emma Donoghue

Ma knows everything except the things she doesn't remember right, or sometimes she says I'm too young for her to explain a thing. — Emma Donoghue

All the women I knew carried some kind of blade, though they were not all metal, or even visible. Whether something had happened to them, or whether they had only anticipated it, it kept them awake the occasional night — Emma Donoghue

And why must it always be presumed that a woman's views are based on personal considerations? — Emma Donoghue

Sentences swallowed and sung back and swallowed all over again. She was made entirely out of words. — Emma Donoghue

Hmm? No, it's a photo of all these streets. The camera's way up in space." "Outer Space?" "Yeah." "Cool." Officer Oh's voice gets all excited. "Three four nine Washington, shed in the rear, lit skylight . . . Got to be. — Emma Donoghue

How odd; wedded for life, because one of us had died. — Emma Donoghue

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. — Emma Donoghue

Any parent knows how to be the ideal parent. — Emma Donoghue

It was like wanting ice cream instead of meat loaf, and being told that children in refugee camps would be grateful for the meat loaf. Yes, of course she had nothing to complain about, compared to so many people, but when had that ever stopped anyone from complaining? Happiness was a balloon that always hovered just out of arm's reach. — Emma Donoghue

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

taking the killers, always two at night because she says pain is like water, it spreads out as soon as she lies down. She — Emma Donoghue

You must feel an almost pathological need - understandably - to stand guard between your son and the world." "Yeah, it's called being a mother." Ma nearly snarls it. — Emma Donoghue