13 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala Quotes for You to Enjoy

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

German Novelist

Born: May 7, 1927

Died: Apr 3, 2013

Am Me Own People Women You

Related authors: Alfred Doblin Curt Siodmak Heinrich Mann Hermann Hesse Herta Muller Lion Feuchtwanger Sonia Levitin

I'm not interested in who am I. I'm interested in what's gone, the disinheritance, what I've been able to become or learn or fuse with or not fuse with. A certain freedom comes... I like it that way. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Freedom Become Gone Way Fuse Able Like Learn Am Been Not Interested Interested Certain Who Who Am I

Film, for me, is in two stages. One is when I write the script more or less on my own - that's the nice bit. And then comes for me the unpleasant bit when they all go off, 100 people - actors and camera people and film and sound - and I stay away. When they go into the editing room, I come in again, and that's the bit I like. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Me People Editing Own Nice Bit Unpleasant Stay My Own More More Or Less Write Come Like Editing Room Sound Go Camera Off Stages Again Script Room Then Less Film Actor Away Two

I stand before you as a writer without any ground of being out of which to write: really blown about from country to country, culture to culture till I feel - till I am - nothing. As it happens, I like it that way. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I am a central European with an English education and a deplorable tendency to constant self-analysis. I am irritable and have weak nerves. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Education Weak Constant Nerves Tendency Am Deplorable Central English European

All my early books are written as if I were Indian. In England, I had started writing as if I were English; now I write as if I were American. You take other people's backgrounds and characters; Keats called it negative capability. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

The older books were quite light-hearted. But I think most of my novels do end on a deep note of pessimism. Shadows seem to be closing in. The final conclusion isn't that life is wonderful and everything is bright and cheery and in the garden. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

I was never interested in film. Never. I never even thought of it. I wasn't even a film buff, I didn't see many films ever. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Thought Films See Never Buff Interested Many Even Film Ever

First, I was so dazzled and besotted by India. People said the poverty was biblical, and I'm afraid that was my attitude, too. It's terribly easy to get used to someone else's poverty if you're living a middle-class life in it. But after a while, I saw it wasn't possible to accept it, and I also didn't want to. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Life Attitude You Bible People Poverty First Living Too Else Saw Possible India Easy Someone Also Terribly Accept Said Get Afraid Want After While Used

One doesn't choose to become a writer. One is just born that way. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Become Way Born Writer Just Choose

I never really had any close friends in India, and I felt a terrible loneliness and isolation for many years. Westernized Indians don't like my books and I tend not to like westernized Indians - so we're quits. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Loneliness Isolation Books India Indians Tend Never Had Like Terrible Felt Years Friends Close Close Friends Any Quits Really Many

England opened up the world of literature for me. Not really having a world of my own, I made up for my disinheritance by absorbing the world of others... I loved them: George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Charles Dickens... I adopted them passionately. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Me World Made Own Others Thomas Charles Charles Dickens Adopted My Own Having Absorb Opened George Passionately Dickens Up Loved Literature Them Really England Hardy

Everyone is so estranged; no one is rooted. That's what I like to write about more than anything else. Everything being so mixed up. Racially mixed up, people moving from place to place, everything shifting. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

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