Nonfiction, to me, feels like an argument, whereas a novel is like a series of questions. — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
Sometimes you can't write a novel for weeks and weeks, but it's good for your self-esteem to work on something else. — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
Writing fiction is a good way to inhabit other minds, if not other lives. — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
For me, a memoir is supposed to be understood as a representation of your life, whereas a novel is self-consciously symbolic. — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
Few writers push the reader away with the coolness, dignity, and faint melancholy of Fleur Jaeggy. — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
It took me five or six years to write 'How Should a Person Be?' and there were many times when I felt… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
Most fiction writers are driven to find their own 'voice,' but I am more interested in the voices of others. — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
Fiction is a way for writers to preserve their friendships and their romances! — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
I don't really have a schedule; I just get up in the morning. I work at home. I don't feel that my… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
The thing I worry about is, what happens when your talent flees? Because you see that with writers sometimes: they start writing… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
To me, something that's beautiful in terms of a book is something that lives inside the reader both as a discrete and… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
I really enjoyed the process of 'Women in Clothes,' but there's no way I would have done that again. It felt more… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
The reason I write is because I have questions. What I don't want is for people to forget that I'm a novelist… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
I believe there's a platonic ideal for every book that is written, like there's the perfect version of the book somewhere in… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
You think you're writing the most important book, you think you're writing the most stupid book, and you never really know before… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
I'd rather that people could be both entertained and given rest while reading my book than for someone to have to put… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
Literature and art are one of a number of relationships I have with the world. Like you have relationships with your friends… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Writing makes everything else in my life okay; it makes everything make sense. — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
When you're writing, I think a big part of writing comes out of an attempt to understand yourself. You're dealing with emotions… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
There's so much to learn in writing and in life, and in any particular era in one's life, it seems like a… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
I don't know what that line is between fiction and non-fiction that other people have in their minds, but to me, when… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
I just always felt whole when I was writing. I felt this kind of beautiful privacy that I never felt in any… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
I believe there's a platonic ideal for every book that is written, like there's the perfect version of the book somewhere in the ether,… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
I really enjoyed the process of 'Women in Clothes,' but there's no way I would have done that again. It felt more like being… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
“style is about knowing what you like and why you like it, more than anything else. GRACE” — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
I'd rather that people could be both entertained and given rest while reading my book than for someone to have to put the book… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
“I know that character exists from the outside alone. I know that inside the body there's just temperature.” — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
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 want to… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
“She had thought that when someone died, it would be like they went into a different room. She had not known that life itself… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
It's so weird how our existence hinges on just absolute crazy chance, but it feels so essential. It's like, 'Nothing would be here if… — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
In 'Sweet Days of Discipline,' the narrator, years after graduating, fortuitously encounters her old friend Frederique at a movie theatre. Frederique invites her home. — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
Women without children can help mothers, and we can just be all in this together. — Sheila Heti Copy Share Image
