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Damon Galgut Quotes
Damon Galgut Quotes
Damon Galgut
South African
Playwright
Born:
Nov 12
,
1963
About
Good
Me
Society
Writing
You
Related authors:
Arthur Miller
Graham Greene
James M. Barrie
Lynn Nottage
Moliere
Noel Coward
Samuel Beckett
W. Somerset Maugham
Something in a writer's brain needs to watch everything with a detached, amoral eye.
Damon Galgut
Needs
Everything
Eye
Detached
Something
Writer
Brain
Amoral
Watch
'Arctic Summer,' as you might know, is the title of Forster's one unfinished novel.
Damon Galgut
You
Unfinished
Summer
Arctic
Know
Title
Might
Novel
Most writers battle with periods of being blocked; it's almost an occupational hazard. But in the writing of his last and greatest novel, 'A Passage to India,' E. M. Forster got stuck for nine years.
Damon Galgut
Battle
Writing
Nine
India
Stuck
Writers
Hazard
Almost
Most
Periods
Occupational
Greatest
Got
Passage
Blocked
His
Years
Being
Novel
Last
South Africa is highly politicised; even small issues become politicised, and it becomes quite bitter.
Damon Galgut
Become
South Africa
Bitter
Small
Highly
Becomes
Issues
South
Quite
Africa
Even
Any radical change or trauma always makes for interesting subject matter, but then all stories deal, to some extent, with the disjuncture between past and present.
Damon Galgut
Change
Matter
Past
Radical
Some
Between
Deal
Makes
Always
Subject
Subject Matter
Any
Stories
Interesting
Then
Radical Change
Trauma
Present
Extent
I go for long walks in Newlands Forest in Cape Town, and I go to the Turkish baths on Sunday mornings.
Damon Galgut
Sunday
Long
Walks
Baths
Mornings
Town
Go
Forest
Turkish
Cape
I'm not designed to interact with society.
Damon Galgut
Society
Interact
Designed
Stationery gets me excited because it has an individual character, unlike computers, which may be convenient but are generic and bland.
Damon Galgut
Character
Me
Unlike
Bland
Individual
Computers
Excited
Generic
Because
Gets
May
Convenient
Which
I'm constitutionally incapable of working on planes or trains, and airports are definitely out.
Damon Galgut
Definitely
Airport
Out
Trains
Planes
Incapable
Working
Yoga helps me with a composed and serene state of mind, which is good for writing.
Damon Galgut
Good
Me
Writing
Mind
State
Composed
Yoga
Which
Serene
Helps
Almost overnight, white people have gone from being very powerful to potentially irrelevant. Their future in South Africa is not what many had envisaged, so it involves a lot of reinvention.
Damon Galgut
Future
People
South Africa
Gone
White
Potentially
Had
Almost
Powerful
Envisaged
Involves
Overnight
South
Lot
Very
Irrelevant
Africa
Being
Many
Reinvention
Being gay myself, I'm naturally drawn to the interactions between men rather than men and women.
Damon Galgut
Myself
Gay
Women
Men
Men And Women
Drawn
Rather
Between
Than
Being
Interactions
Naturally
I work by hand, with a fountain pen, in bound notebooks I buy in India.
Damon Galgut
Work
Buy
Pen
India
Bound
Hand
Notebooks
Fountain
Fountain Pen
Writing is very good for household tasks. Because you'd rather fix a dripping tap or paint an old wall - you'd rather do almost anything than sit and write. I have to reach a point of obsession in order to write, and so I find starting a book incredibly difficult.
Damon Galgut
Good
You
Book
Writing
Old
Sit
Difficult
Incredibly
Find
Rather
Point
Dripping
Write
Almost
Almost Anything
Obsession
Reach
Household
Because
Tap
Very
Than
Fix
Wall
Tasks
Order
Anything
Paint
Starting
Writing is not like acting, where you can pull these little stunts that create a particular effect. Words are all it is about, and the way you use words has to be individual and particular to you.
Damon Galgut
You
Writing
Words
Way
About
Individual
Particular
Like
Stunts
Effect
Where
Little
Create
Acting
Use
Pull
While apartheid was in operation, the set-up was a gift for writers if you were looking for a big theme.
Damon Galgut
You
Gift
Looking
Big
Writers
Operation
Were
While
Apartheid
Theme
I'm fascinated by how much has changed from one generation to another. There are young people growing up now for whom apartheid is just a distant memory and the idea of military service is an abstract notion.
Damon Galgut
Service
Memory
Generation
People
Young
Military
Changed
Distant
Abstract
Idea
Another
How
How Much
Up
Just
Apartheid
Young People
Much
Notion
Fascinated
Growing
Military Service
Whom
Growing Up
Now
Traveling is one of few zones of experience where you are not directly plugged into the world around you. You're not part of the society you're passing through.
Damon Galgut
You
Experience
World
Few
Society
Directly
Through
Part
Around
Passing
Where
Traveling
Zone
I should confess that I'm woefully under-read in South African fiction.
Damon Galgut
South
South African
Confess
African
Fiction
Should
Perhaps cliche is nothing more than the weight of the past pinning down your mind. In this sense, imaginative freedom is a way of finding the future, though it isn't so easy to do.
Damon Galgut
Future
Freedom
Mind
Past
Sense
Nothing
Down
Way
Though
Easy
Finding
More
Weight
Perhaps
Cliche
Than
Your
Imaginative
I first went to India because of my interest in yoga, hoping to go to the Iyengar Centre in Pune for a while. That didn't work out, but I ended up on a beach in Goa, writing.
Damon Galgut
Work
Writing
First
Out
India
Hoping
Beach
Because
Go
Up
Yoga
Ended
While
Interest
Centre
Work Out
I've been wanting to write a book about what goes into creating a novel, and the story behind 'A Passage to India' is especially interesting.
Damon Galgut
Book
India
About
Write
Passage
Been
Goes
Behind
Wanting
Story
Interesting
Creating
Novel
Real obsession needs an unconscious motivation behind it.
Damon Galgut
Needs
Unconscious
Obsession
Real
Motivation
Behind
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