97 Quotes by Helen Dunmore

"The poets whom I knew then were all men and all seemed dauntingly sure of themselves - although I am sure that really they were as uncertain as I was."

"The human longing for story is so powerful, so primitive, that it seems like something not learned, but locked into our genes."

"If the garden of Eden really exists it does so moment by moment, fragmented and tough, cropping up like a fan of buddleia high up in the gutter of a deserted warehouse, or in a heap of frozen cabbages becoming luminous in the reflected light of roadside snow."

"Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn't work, throw it away. It's a nice feeling, and you don't want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need."

"Finish the day's writing when you still want to continue."

"A problem with a piece of writing often clarifies itself if you go for a long walk."

"Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away."

"Reread, rewrite, reread, rewrite. If it still doesn’t work, throw it away. It’s a nice feeling, and you don’t want to be cluttered with the corpses of poems and stories which have everything in them except the life they need."

"It must be quite hard when you’re a parent and you find out that your children’s dreams are nothing like the dreams you’ve had for them."

"I wish I was away in Ingo Far across the briny sea Sailing over deepest waters Where neither care nor worry trouble me."