Helen Garner Quotes

Helen Garner
Helen Garner
Australian Novelist
Born: Nov 7, 1942
Book Life Me People Think You
Related authors: James Clavell Janette Turner Hospital Julia Leigh Nick Earls Peter Carey Richard Flanagan Steve Toltz Thomas Keneally
The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning or intention but the fulfilment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall. Helen Garner
Nature Rain Fall Own Easily Fell Began Intention Which Again Meaning Fulfilment
That's the best thing that's ever happened to me, bar none, is having grandchildren and living by them and being part of their lives. Helen Garner
Best Me Living Having Part None Being Happened Bar Grandchildren Them Ever Lives Thing
I suppose there must be idiots who dream of signing deals with publishers while fully intending to drink martinis in cool bars or ride around on skateboards. But the actual writers I know are experts in neurotic self-torture. Every page of writing is the result of a thousand tiny decisions and desperate acts of will. Helen Garner
Writing Ride Result Desperate Will Every Thousand Dream Must Signing Martini Drink Neurotic Writers Suppose Know Around Idiots Deals Intending Tiny Experts While Decisions Page Who Cool Fully Bars Acts Actual Publishers
Courts are supposed to be places of reason. But this, of course, is a fantasy. I mean, there is reason being used as a technique. But courts, in fact, are baths of emotions. Helen Garner
Emotions Baths Fact Supposed Course Courts Being In Fact Places Mean Fantasy Used Reason Being Used Technique
The only thing that I was equipped for with my very mediocre college Arts degree was to get a job in teaching. Helen Garner
Job Degree College Only Equipped Very Get Arts The Only Thing Teaching Thing Mediocre
People demand a lot of the justice system and they demand things that it can't deliver. Helen Garner
Justice People System Deliver Demand Lot Things
I just... my childhood seems, when I look back, to be largely composed of reading, lying on the bed. I mean, my mother was always shouting, 'Go outside!' But she shouted it at all of us. I think I was just kind of... rather an introverted child, probably. Helen Garner
Mother Reading Think Lying Back Kind Introverted Composed Seems Rather Outside Look She Always Bed Go Child Childhood Just Just Kind Mean Us Shouting Largely
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. Helen Garner
Life Future Me You My Life Think Tell Kind One Thing Some Gives Feel Opening Overestimate Makes Got Person Grandchildren Wasted Thing
It's disturbing at my age to look at a young woman's destructive behaviour and hear the echoes of it, of one's own destructiveness in youth. Helen Garner
Woman Age Youth Own Young Destructive Destructiveness Disturbing Echoes Look Hear Behaviour
It's a terrific privilege to be able to see into somebody else's life. Helen Garner
Life Somebody Else See Able Terrific Privilege
I'm very disturbed by violence against women when it is violence. Helen Garner
Women Disturbed Very Against Violence
I think writers are very anxious. Helen Garner
Think Writers Very Anxious
But I now think what I was doing, in a completely unconscious way, was getting off the turf where my husband and I might be rivals. We were both working in fiction... so I look back and I see that I consciously vacated the contested ground. Helen Garner
Husband Think Back Way See Both Rivals Unconscious Look Contested Doing Were Off Getting Where Fiction Turf Might Working Ground Now
Janet Malcolm's probably the writer I most admire and who's most influenced me. Helen Garner
Me Admire Writer Most Malcolm Influenced
I used to feel an obligation to invent things. I felt I was a failure because I didn't do massive great novels about Australia or the outback or something. I just don't feel that any more. Helen Garner
Great Failure Obligation Invent About Something More Feel Massive Because Felt Australia Any Just Used Novels Things
It's much more interesting for me to think that taking a chunk of experience and mushing it up together with other things that are inventible, remembered from some other time or stolen from other people's stories... and see if I can make it into something that works, an object, a little machine that runs. Helen Garner
Time Me Together Experience People Think Other Chunk Machine Runs See Some Object Something More Remembered Taking Make Up Stolen Stories Interesting Little Much Works Things
I don't understand my own sporadic collapses into passivity. Perhaps I never will. Helen Garner
Will Own My Own Never Perhaps Understand Passivity
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. Helen Garner
Obligations Book Hate Earn Back Dread Foggy Financially Advance Still Pathetic Maybe Producing

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