97 Quotes by Helen Dunmore

"As individuals, we are shaped by story from the time of birth; we are formed by what we are told by our parents, our teachers, our intimates."

"Mourning Ruby is not a flat landscape: it is more like a box with pictures painted on every face. And each face is also a door which opens, I hope, to take the reader deep into the book."

"A novel, in the end, is a container, a shape which you are trying to pour your story into."

"If we understand the past, we are more likely to recognise what is happening around us."

"My first collection of poems was published by Bloodaxe Books, which was then a very new imprint."

"I hope that readers will tear through my books because they can't stop themselves - and then, maybe, read them again and find new things there."

"I would like people to come into my Dreamworld and then choose to stay."

"Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear."

"When you are young you don't always realise how full of doubts everybody is."

"I concentrate on the lives of individuals whom the reader comes to know and feel with intimately."