Rose Tremain Quotes & Sayings

“The process of rewriting is enjoyable, because you're not in that existential panic when you don't have a novel at all.”

“Life is not a dress rehearsal.”

“When you've finished a piece of work you've had a kind of love affair with it.”

“I think I'm drawn to writing about something which feels intense and important.”

“Perhaps, all writers walk such a line. In general - as we all do in our dreams - I believe I put something of myself into all the characters in my novels, male as well as female.”

“I have likened writing a novel to going on a journey, with some notion of the destination I will arrive at, but not the whole picture - which emerges gradually as a series of revelations, as the journey goes along.”

“Perhaps, more importantly, I think that most human beings realise only a fraction of the true potential of their minds, so the spiritual or mystical, the things which remain mysterious or unexplained have always drawn me to include them in any scheme for a novel.”

“I can inhabit any character in a way that is difficult to do successfully in a contemporary novel.”

“I'm always amazed by writers who tell me they plan everything at the beginning. I feel their writing days must be very bland.”

“Life should be embraced like a lover.”