Helen Garner Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“Writers seem to me to be people who need to retire from social life and do a lot of thinking about what's happened - almost to calm themselves.”

“I tell you one thing that makes me feel I haven't wasted my life, and that is I've got some grandchildren. You can't overestimate the kind of opening to the future that gives a person, I think.”

“Maybe this is pathetic, but I still dread producing a book that doesn't earn back its advance. I hate obligations that are financially foggy.”

“I think some people wished I'd kept myself out of the book. But I kind of insist on it because I want the reader to share my engagement with the material, if you like, not pretend that I'm doing it completely intellectually.”

“Well, I'm at some kind of crossroads in my life and I don't know which way to take. It's not about money, I mean, because I'm established enough now as a writer to get a reasonable advance if I wanted to do fiction.”

“As in all matters involving love, which has so many different meanings, you find that the feeling that we label 'love' is not a simple feeling, it's a very complex one. Under the heading 'love' can come all sorts of rage and desperation.”

“Life's fairly excruciating. Painful things happen. Every now and then, you drag yourself out of the stream and stand on the bank gasping for air. I think that's how I work.”

“At the time it seemed like a natural development of my interest in what was going on around me in society.”

“I think writers are very anxious.”

“That's one of the things I hope that the book can do, is to restore some dignity to Joe Cinque.”