Top 39 Quotes by Emma Donoghue

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

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

I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person's point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I'm not naturally good at strong plot.

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.

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.

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.

I love it when novels contain a broad cast of characters, including queer ones.

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.

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

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