Jane Gardam Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“I knew I had a lot to say. Not politically - politics have always confused me - but perhaps spiritually.”

“I longed from a tiny child to get away on my own. When I was five, I walked out along the sands from Redcar, nearly all the way to Hartlepool.”

“I was nearly 40 when I started. I had no fear that I wasn't going to write. I knew it was just delayed. Then, my goodness, I never stopped.”

“If I've got one thing that I really believe about fiction and life, it's that there are no minor characters.”

“In modern novels, there is no one I want to copy. My style 'is a poor thing, but it is my own.'”

“Mum was a tremendous Anglo-Catholic. Very impressive, actually. She made me go to church for years - I still don't want to because of that.”

“While writing a novel, I don't read anything new in fiction. I am too engrossed.”

“I discovered that writing was very nice indeed when I was very young, and I never changed. I don't think my style has changed very much at all - though I hope what I say is a bit more interesting. It's about getting to know a character and loving them, I think.”

“The best novel I wrote was one called 'Crusoe's Daughter,' which never won any prizes. But I was getting somewhere in that. I'm not sure I have in any of the others.”

“When I was young and the empire was beginning to disintegrate, the idea was absolutely unbelievable, particularly to children who'd been taught that the sun never set... that's what all my books are about, the end of empire.”