When an idea comes, spend silent time with it. Remember Keats's idea of Negative Capability and Kipling's advice to "drift, wait, and obey." Along with your gathering of hard data, allow yourself also to dream your idea into being. — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
I'm always amazed by writers who tell me they plan everything at the beginning. I feel their writing days must be very bland. — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
At the moment, I'm toying with a new idea for a book, but fully engaged with writing screenplays, so the book idea - which… — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
The imagination conjures gifts; what the ungrateful, unsentimental part of the mind has to do is to unwrap them, find fault with them, see… — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
“Acceptance, she thinks, is the harshest lesson life teaches and the one most important to learn.” — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
There is something about the unexpected that moves us. As if the whole of existence is paid for in some way, except for that… — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
When you've finished a piece of work you've had a kind of love affair with it. — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
“My name is Lev," said Lev. "My name is Lydia," said the woman. And they shook hands, Lev's hand holding the scrunched-up kerchief and… — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
In the planning stage of a book, don't plan the ending. It has to be earned by all that will go before it. — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
“Inevitably we make a small world in the midst of a big one. For a small world is all we know how to make.’p46” — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
“...and Pao Yi was reminded that the inclination of almost every living thing is to cling on, to remain where it is, but that… — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
Never be satisfied with a first draft. In fact, never be satisfied with your own stuff at all, until you're certain it's as good… — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
“Lev took out a cigarette and stuck it between his lips and the woman sitting next to him a plump contained person with moles… — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
Any setting can potentially acquire this vividness. It slowly arrives during the period of research, until it is as immediate to me as my… — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
Forget the boring old dictum, 'Write about what you know.' Instead, seek out an unknown yet knowable area of experience that's going to enhance… — Rose Tremain Copy Share Image
