Sheila Heti

An artist's love for what they create is what creates love.

— Sheila Heti

It's nice to go into your doom. It's so liberating.

— Sheila Heti

Raffi is arguably the world's most famous children's singer.

— Sheila Heti

Just because you are alive does not mean you have to give life.

— Sheila Heti

The thing to do when you're feeling ambivalent is to wait.

— Sheila Heti

“Women’s fiction” doesn’t sound like anything but a slur to my ears.”

— Sheila Heti

People don't know who I am from my clothes, and they don't need to.

— Sheila Heti

My parents are both scientists, and I was raised without god.

— Sheila Heti

Trying to live the image of the life which you have in your head... it's really hard not to do that, but…

— Sheila Heti

One good thing about being a woman is we haven't too many examples yet of what a genius looks like. It could…

— Sheila Heti

I wanted to talk to a lot of women about their experiences along the path to motherhood - or along the path…

— Sheila Heti

There's something about a woman's life choices that invites commentary, whether it's been invited or not.

— Sheila Heti

There's so much anxiety about being understood - and being understood through what you wear.

— Sheila Heti

I do feel it. And I've felt it my whole life, that the supernatural has a role in the world.

— Sheila Heti

I just always try to respond to what I'm most interested in at the moment - that hasn't changed.

— Sheila Heti

My feminism is just part of my being - a part of my understanding of the world.

— Sheila Heti

Growing up, I never knew that Raffi turned down celebrity endorsements, TV shows, and specials and refused to make merchandise, but it…

— Sheila Heti

Some of my favorite experiences of art are when I am there but my attention has wandered. I think stimulation is overrated,…

— Sheila Heti

In 'Sweet Days of Discipline,' the narrator, years after graduating, fortuitously encounters her old friend Frederique at a movie theatre. Frederique invites…

— Sheila Heti

I find that when I'm in a relationship, I'm just so 'in it,' you couldn't even call it an art; it's such…

— Sheila Heti

I feel like one can have all of that as a writer; you're writing, you're reading, you're talking to interesting and intelligent…

— Sheila Heti

I think a lot of people try to edit themselves out and I think that's a big mistake, because the person being…

— Sheila Heti

'The Chairs are Where the People Go' was told to me by my friend Misha Glouberman; I typed as he talked. In…

— Sheila Heti

I don't think about the reader when I'm writing, but I do when I'm editing, of course. For instance, I self-consciously didn't…

— Sheila Heti

“When I strip away my dreams, what I imagine to be my potential, all the things I haven't said, what I imagine…

— Sheila Heti

Writing, for me, when I'm writing in the first-person, is like a form of acting. So as I'm writing, the character or…

— Sheila Heti

“But two years into our parties, I surveyed the scene from the corner and wondered, Why are we having these parties? What…

— Sheila Heti

I remember going over proofs of this book - my first book - back in 2001, in a bar in Toronto called…

— Sheila Heti

Literature and art are one of a number of relationships I have with the world. Like you have relationships with your friends…

— Sheila Heti

I hadn't realized until this week that in [Moses'] youth he killed a man, an Egyptian, and buried him under some sandI…

— Sheila Heti

I remember very vividly a little plaid dress on which my father sewed all these hanging beads, little horses and stuff. It…

— Sheila Heti

“There's so much beauty in this world that it's hard to begin. There are no words with which to express my gratitude…

— Sheila Heti

“Sholem [a painter] was saying that freedom, for him, is having the technical facility to be able to execute whatever he wants,…

— Sheila Heti

“I did value Margaux, but only now did I understand something I had not before: Margaux was not like the stars in…

— Sheila Heti

“Because people who live their lives this way can look forward to a single destiny, shared with others of this type -…

— Sheila Heti

“Most people live their entire lives with their clothes on, and even if they wanted to, couldn't take them off. Then there…

— Sheila Heti

“perhaps that’s what it’s for – self-confidence and courage and energy and peace – perhaps it’s to be used in the world.…

— Sheila Heti

We don't know the effects we have on each other, but we have them.

— Sheila Heti

Every choice you make has higher stakes - or that's how it feels.

— Sheila Heti

It's fun to give pleasure to people.

— Sheila Heti