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Lynn Coady Quotes
Lynn Coady Quotes
Lynn Coady
Canadian
Novelist
Born:
Jan 24
,
1970
Always
Me
People
Time
Writing
You
Related authors:
Claire Cameron
David Bergen
Joy Fielding
Margaret Atwood
Mordecai Richler
Robertson Davies
Ruth Ozeki
Let's not confuse traditional behaviours with good manners. The definition of etiquette is gender neutral - it simply means we strive at all times to ensure a person in our company feels at ease.
Lynn Coady
Good
Gender
Confuse
Manners
Our
Good Manners
Ease
Ensure
Definition
Strive
Neutral
Simply
Feels
Traditional
Times
Person
Means
Etiquette
Company
True adulthood occurs the moment we grasp that the people who raised us do not exist solely for our comfort and reassurance. From that point on, the steady stream of unconditional love and support we've expected from them all our lives has to flow both ways.
Lynn Coady
Love
People
Stream
Our
Our Lives
Solely
Ways
All Our Lives
Steady
Both
Point
Both Ways
Unconditional
Unconditional Love
Adulthood
Support
True
Comfort
Occurs
Exist
Expected
Them
Us
Moment
Who
Reassurance
Grasp
Lives
Flow
Raised
It's the typical mid-life crisis kind of thing, where you just stop and wonder, 'Should I go back to university and get a law degree?' I kind of looked around me and thought, 'What kind of idiot am I that I've just spent the last 10 years writing novels? Financially, I'm pretty much where I was when I was 28.'
Lynn Coady
Me
You
Writing
Law
Thought
Degree
Idiot
Back
Typical
Spent
Crisis
Kind
Financially
Pretty
Looked
Around
Am
Go
Years
Wonder
Get
Just
Mid-Life
Stop
Mid-Life Crisis
Where
Much
Should
Novels
Thing
Last
University
Flowers are an easy, eloquent expression of love at a time when words can seem clumsy and inadequate.
Lynn Coady
Love
Time
Words
Eloquent
Easy
Seem
Inadequate
Clumsy
Expression
Flowers
Filtering can be a very good thing when it comes to human relationships and familial harmony. Yeah, filtering is often an absolute necessity.
Lynn Coady
Good
Filtering
Harmony
Relationships
Absolute
Absolute Necessity
Good Thing
Yeah
Very
Often
Human
Human Relationships
Thing
Necessity
It's a moral absolute: If you are going to make a human being, you have a fundamental responsibility to that person - to honestly disclose exactly who they are and where they come from.
Lynn Coady
You
Human Being
Responsibility
Disclose
Honestly
Moral
Exactly
Absolute
Come
Make
Person
Going
Human
Being
Where
Who
Fundamental
Atheism is a moral position - a rather rigid one, if you've ever read the opinions of its highest-profile espousers, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins.
Lynn Coady
You
Christopher
Rigid
Atheism
Moral
Rather
Read
Opinions
Richard
Ever
Position
When a man tells a woman there is no chance of a formal, committed, long-term relationship, the only self-respecting response is to take him at his word and move on.
Lynn Coady
Relationship
Man
Woman
Word
Move On
Response
No Chance
Tells
Only
Take
Long-Term
Him
His
Committed
Move
Formal
Chance
Occasionally, chewing over some random letter writer's dilemma, I'll find myself imagining scenarios where the problem could be sidestepped by an innocent fib or series of evasive manoeuvres. Then, I slap myself on the wrist.
Lynn Coady
Myself
Problem
Innocent
Random
Dilemma
Find
Some
Scenarios
Could
Wrist
Writer
Over
Occasionally
Chewing
Where
Then
Evasive
Series
Letter
Slap
Imagining
In the late sixties, when revolution and upheaval were everywhere, feminists were ridiculed for focusing on housework.
Lynn Coady
Revolution
Late
Everywhere
Focusing
Housework
Feminists
Were
Upheaval
Sixties
Ridiculed
You know the actor's nightmare is getting up onstage and not being prepared? I think the writer's nightmare is giving a reading and somebody standing up and saying, 'That's not your story.'
Lynn Coady
Saying
You
Somebody
Giving
Reading
Think
Onstage
Writer
Know
Up
Getting
Being
Story
Being Prepared
Your
Standing
Standing Up
Prepared
Actor
Nightmare
Readers who claim a preference for short-form over long often tell me it's because they don't have time to commit to a book-length chunk of writing.
Lynn Coady
Time
Me
Writing
Long
Chunk
Claim
Tell
Over
Readers
Because
Commit
Often
Preference
Who
Literary readings aren't going to shake their reputation as the added-fibre of our entertainment diet until the people who organize and participate in them snap out of this mentality.
Lynn Coady
Entertainment
People
Reputation
Our
Out
Shake
Mentality
Participate
Until
Readings
Snap
Going
Diet
Literary
Them
Organize
Who
Audience participation can often inject a dose of adrenalin into your average dial-tone literary reading, especially if a handful of audience-members are mentally unhinged, and let's face it - you can always depend on at least one crackpot at these things.
Lynn Coady
You
Face
Reading
Depend
At Least One
Mentally
Adrenalin
Participation
Audience
Always
Least
Handful
Often
Literary
Dose
Average
Your
Things
Do not make the writer stand behind a podium. Anything but. A podium reeks of the lecture hall. A music stand, on the other hand, is nicely minimal and lends the writer - who usually needs all the help s/he can get - a musician's second-hand cool-factor.
Lynn Coady
Music
Needs
Second-Hand
Other
Minimal
Musician
Podium
Writer
Make
Hall
Lecture
Hand
Get
Behind
Anything
Lends
Stand
Help
Who
Nicely
The novel, as a genre, was once considered a diversion every bit as frivolous as Facebook, but over the years, we've managed to convince ourselves that reading fiction is as important to our mental digestion as fresh fruits and vegetables are to the processes that take place a little further down.
Lynn Coady
Facebook
Vegetables
Important
Reading
Down
Every
Digestion
Our
Once
Considered
Bit
Further
Ourselves
Mental
Diversion
Take
Over
Genre
Fresh
Years
Frivolous
Fiction
Fruits
Place
Processes
Little
Convince
Novel
It's kind of sad, the way we've turned the entertainment of reading into a kind of psychic broccoli - something to feel guilty about if you don't force it on your face-making children while dutifully consuming a few token florets yourself.
Lynn Coady
Sad
You
Entertainment
Yourself
Psychic
Reading
Few
Way
Guilty
Broccoli
Kind
About
Something
Consuming
Feel
Force
Children
While
Turned
Your
Token
The fundamentals for me are character and conflict. I put character first because readers will be indifferent to conflict if they are indifferent to the character who is experiencing it.
Lynn Coady
Character
Me
Conflict
Will
First
Indifferent
Put
Readers
Because
Experiencing
Who
Fundamentals
I think authors like me are always struggling with the idea that they should have a brand and a Facebook author page and they should get Twitter accounts. I don't know what to do with them.
Lynn Coady
Me
Facebook
Think
Twitter
Struggling
Idea
Like
Know
Always
Brand
Accounts
Author
Get
Authors
Them
Should
Page
Keep a copy of 'Islands in the Stream' by Ernest Hemingway on the left hand side of your desk. Keep Fitzgerald's 'The Crack Up' on the right. When you get stuck, pick them up and pretend that they are having a fight, like you used to do with your GI Joes.
Lynn Coady
You
Fight
Stream
Side
Pretend
Having
Stuck
Pick
Like
Islands
Ernest Hemingway
Hand
Left
Up
Fitzgerald
Crack
Get
Them
Your
Used
Hemingway
Keep
Right
Copy
Desk
It's doubtful that any fiction worth reading has been produced on a computer running Windows Vista.
Lynn Coady
Worth
Reading
Worth Reading
Has-Been
Vista
Running
Windows
Computer
Been
Any
Fiction
Produced
Doubtful
When revising, consider whether you have written anything that will hurt or offend a member of your immediate family. If the answer is no, go back and add something.
Lynn Coady
Family
You
Hurt
Will
Add
Consider
Back
Immediate
Member
Something
Written
Answer
Go
Offend
Revising
Anything
Whether
Your
Never use dogs to symbolize anything. That is ridiculous. Always ensure that any dogs are just dogs; i.e., characters in the story who happen to be dogs.
Lynn Coady
Ensure
Characters
Never
Always
Dogs
Any
Just
Happen
Anything
Story
Use
Who
Ridiculous
Symbolize
I even felt like I liked guys better than women - that men were relevant and women weren't. It took me a while to realize I'd been socialized to have a slighting view of my own gender.
Lynn Coady
Me
Women
Better
Men
Gender
Own
Took
Relevant
Guys
My Own
Like
Liked
Felt
Were
Been
Than
While
Realize
View
Even
Socialized
When writing sex scenes, there is often no pleasing anyone, except perhaps the writer herself.
Lynn Coady
Writing
Sex
Herself
Pleasing
Scenes
Except
Writer
Perhaps
Often
Anyone
What I've learned is that you get better at writing by writing, and that 'youthful energy' will only get you so far.
Lynn Coady
You
Writing
Better
Will
Energy
Only
Learned
Get
Far
Youthful
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