97 Quotes by Helen Dunmore

"To try to expunge an individual’s history is a terrible violation."

"Writing children’s books gives a writer a very strong sense of narrative drive."

"The language has got to be fully alive – I can’t bear dull, flaccid writing myself and I don’t see why any reader should put up with it."

"Once one habit peels away the others follow it. You have to hold on, or the next thing you’ll find yourself parading down the street in your nightdress. Habit is everything."

"The art of hiding in plain sight used to be second nature, and now it has become the whole of him."

"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."

"Go back to your house then, and see what happiness you find there.’ ‘It has nothing to do with happiness.’ ‘It is true that marriage seems often to have little to do with happiness. But who am I to judge? I have never been married."

"However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I’m concerned."

"A trouble shared is a trouble halved."

"Only a very few people leave traces in history, or even bequeath family documents to their descendants. Most have no money to memorialise themselves, and lack even a gravestone to mark their existence. Women’s lives, in particular, remain largely unrecorded. But even so, did they not shape the future?"