Latest Emma Donoghue Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• My mother was wonderfully out about her dementia. She would sort of - she would say to me, I came out to the window cleaner about having dementia. You know, I love the way that verb for coming out of the closet has now become so socially useful for all sorts of situations, like when you need to explain to the window cleaner that you don't know if you paid him or not.

  Emma Donoghue

  Mother, Window, Dementia

  "Emma Donoghue Helps Kids Deal With Dementia (And Still Has Fun) In 'The Lotterys'". "Morning Edition" with Rachel Martin, krcu.org. March 27, 2017.

• I really like to keep my palette small but to be very intense, very myopic.

  Emma Donoghue

  Myopic, Intense, Palette

  "Emma Donoghue's New Novel Follows "The Wonder" Of Starvation". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. September 17, 2016.

• Sometimes, I think there's a lack of ambition in me. But then sometimes, I think, no, you can, like William Blake said, you know, see heaven in a grain of sand. If you look really, really closely at a situation, you can find almost endless interest in it.

  Emma Donoghue

  Ambition, Thinking, Heaven

  "Emma Donoghue's New Novel Follows "The Wonder" Of Starvation". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. September 17, 2016.

• So much as I enjoy big novels of epic sweep, I often find, say, if they follow several generations, by the third generation, I'm not caring about the people anymore.

  Emma Donoghue

  Caring, Epic, People

  "Emma Donoghue's New Novel Follows "The Wonder" Of Starvation". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. September 17, 2016.

• It turns up the heat under a narrative when you limit the characters in their movements or their freedoms.

  Emma Donoghue

  Character, Limits, Movement

  "Emma Donoghue's New Novel Follows "The Wonder" Of Starvation". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. September 17, 2016.

• I always wince a little bit when I send me to each of my new books. I wince at submitting myself to my father's judgment. But, of course, he's such a fond father that he always writes back, saying it's the greatest thing ever written.

  Emma Donoghue

  Father, Book, Writing

  "Emma Donoghue's New Novel Follows "The Wonder" Of Starvation". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. September 17, 2016.

• I'm very interested in how idealistic young people can get caught up in all sorts of systems of extreme belief, you know, whether it's cults or whether it's suicide bombers.

  Emma Donoghue

  Suicide, People, Bombers

  "Emma Donoghue's New Novel Follows "The Wonder" Of Starvation". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. September 17, 2016.

• There are so many examples today of how the kind of wonderful zealousness and unquestioning loyalty of young people can be harnessed by all sorts of insidious powers.

  Emma Donoghue

  Loyalty, People, Example

  "Emma Donoghue's New Novel Follows "The Wonder" Of Starvation". Interview with Scott Simon, www.npr.org. September 17, 2016.

• Now that I've got a way in [to the industry] - because it can feel a bit like, "How can I possibly write a film?" - but now that I've got at least some experience in the film world, I'd absolutely love to do it again.

  Emma Donoghue

  Writing, World, Way

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• I'm very keen. Adaptations of other people's work, too. I got fascinated by the adaptation process, so I think that'd be a really interesting task. I would happily write original screenplays as well. I think it's become one of my favorite genres.

  Emma Donoghue

  Writing, Thinking, People

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• I think there are few films out there that take motherhood seriously.

  Emma Donoghue

  Motherhood, Thinking, Film

  "‘Room’ Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her “Deeply Feminist” Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, blogs.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• Feminism is still one of those taboo words, so hardly anybody talks about it. People usually go gender-neutral and say the book and film [Room] are about "the triumph of the human spirit.

  Emma Donoghue

  Book, People, Feminism

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• I actually tried to think of the story [Room] in gender-neutral terms at first and said to myself, "OK, would this work if it were a man?" Well no, you can't make a man pregnant, so it's got to be a woman.

  Emma Donoghue

  Men, Thinking, Stories

  "‘Room’ Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her “Deeply Feminist” Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, blogs.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• I think I read Susan Brownmiller's classic book called "Femininity" when I was about 16. So yeah, it's been part of my mindset since a very early age. To me, what's crucial is to tell women's stories but also to tell them in a way that is fearless.

  Emma Donoghue

  Book, Thinking, Fearless

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• I guess the feminism in "Room" springs to mind most.

  Emma Donoghue

  Spring, Mind, Feminism

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• I must say, in the case of "Room," both the book and the film, I don't think being a lesbian author held me back at all.

  Emma Donoghue

  Book, Thinking, Rooms

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• I think I know what it's like to have a family that the outside world sees as peculiar or lacking.

  Emma Donoghue

  Thinking, World, Peculiar

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• I say "on principle" [regarding 'lesbian writer'] because whenever you get one of your minority labels applied, like "Irish Writer," "Canadian Writer," "Woman Writer," "Lesbian Writer" - any of those categories - you always slightly wince because you're afraid that people will think that means you're only going to write about Canada or Ireland, you know.

  Emma Donoghue

  Writing, Mean, Thinking

  "‘Room’ Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her “Deeply Feminist” Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, blogs.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• The film world is far more male-dominated. I mean, the numbers are staggering at the level of how many people on set there are, and almost all the trades in film, there's a lot more men. So I can see without anyone intending to be biased [that] we have kind of a collective choosing of men's stories and a collective of taking men's stories seriously.

  Emma Donoghue

  Mean, Men, Numbers

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• I've certainly seen stats that if you have a woman director or a woman screenwriter, the number of female characters goes way up.

  Emma Donoghue

  Character, Numbers, Way

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• Something we do know is that review coverage does go to male authors more than women authors. That's a fact. I think it's one of those examples of unconscious bias: If you hire a lot of male journalists, they're more likely to pick up the latest Ian McEwan novel than the latest A.S. Byatt novel.

  Emma Donoghue

  Thinking, Facts, Males

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• In the publishing world, most editors are probably women. So I don't see the publishing world as a male-dominated one, especially within fiction.

  Emma Donoghue

  Editors, World, Males

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• There may be certain genres that men dominate, but fiction not so much. The question of prizes is tricky because there are so many prizes.

  Emma Donoghue

  Men, Fiction, May

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• What's crucial about being an executive producer is that you stay in the loop, information-wise. They have to share all their major decisions with you.

  Emma Donoghue

  Wise, Decision, Information

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.

• If you have written something that the film people want, like a book, it does give you a way in.

  Emma Donoghue

  Book, Giving, People

  "Room" Author/Screenwriter Emma Donoghue on Her "Deeply Feminist" Film and Industry Sexism". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. October 16, 2015.