D. J. Enright Quotes
Belief needs something terrible to make it work, I find--blood, nails, a bit of anguish.
I write anywhere - when I have an idea it’s hard not to write. I used to be kind of precious about where I wrote. Everything had to be quiet and I couldn’t be disturbed, it really filled my day.
I work at the sentences. Many of the things people find distinctive about my writing, I think of as natural.
I think writers worry that you might not exist in some strange way if you're not writing.
Having kids is very difficult to do on your own, and it's really crazy difficult to think you're doing it as a team and to find out that you're not actually part of a team.
I think young children in the Western middle classes are objects of incredible anxiety.
People whose lives are upside down often read fiction. When you're not sure where you'll end up or how you are going to be, and you're looking for some way forward, fiction is a great friend.
Up and down' is Irish for anything at all--from crying into the dishes to full-blown psychosis. Though, now that I think about, a psychotic is more usually 'not quite herself'.
A drinker does not exist. Whatever they say, it is just the drink talking
By lunchtime the valley was lightly coated, like a cake with confectioner's sugar...there was white fur on the antlers of the iron deer and on the melancholy boughs of the Norway spruce.
Her past is behind her, her future is of little concern. She moves towards the grave, at her own speed.
Writing is mostly a case of mood management. The emotion you have is not absolute, it is temporary. It may be useful, but it is not the truth. It is not you.
Self-pity is the hens' besetting sin, " remarked Mr. Payton. "Foolish fowl. How they came to achieve anything as perfect as the egg I do not know! I cannot fathom.
