Top Helen Dunmore Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Helen Dunmore Biography

Helen Dunmore FRSL (12 December 1952 – 5 June 2017) was a British poet, novelist, and short story and children's writer.

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Helen Dunmore Quotes

We are creatures of story.

Creatures, Stories, Story

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

Long, Long Walks, Pieces, Problem, Walk, Writing

My first collection of poems was published by Bloodaxe Books, which was then a very new imprint.

Bloodaxe, Book, Books, Collections, Firsts, Poems

However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition.

Accepted, Entering, Firsts, Like, Magazines

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

Book, Children, Drive, Narrative, Strong, Writer

When you are young you don't always realise how full of doubts everybody is.

Doubt, Full, Realise, Realising, Young

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.

Alive, Dull, Flaccid, Language, Writing

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

Aloud, Conscious, Ears, Sound, Writing

I would like people to come into my Dreamworld and then choose to stay.

Choose, Come, Dreamworld, Like, People, Stay

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

Continue, Finish, Stills, Want, Writing

Poets go through a very tough apprenticeship in the use of words.

Apprenticeship, Poet, Poets, Tough, Use

Mourning Ruby is not a flat landscape: it is more like a box with pictures painted on every face. And each face is also a door which opens, I hope, to take the reader deep into the book.

Book, Box, Deep, Door, Doors, Mourning

If we understand the past, we are more likely to recognise what is happening around us.

Happenings, Likely, Past, Recognise, Understand

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.

Discipline, Finding Yourself, Follow, Habit, Next, Street

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.

Book, Maybe, Reader, Stop, Tear, Tears

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.

Cluttered, Feelings, Nice, Poems, Throw, Writing

It is a violation which has obsessed the tyrants of the twentieth century. They do not want simply to kill their opponents, but to liquidate them, to deny that they have ever existed.

Liquidate, Opponents, Simply, Twentieth, Tyrants, Want

For you where never my blood sister so no more shall I call you little sister

Blood, Call, Little Sister, Littles, Sister

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.

Dauntingly, Men, Poet, Seemed, Uncertain

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

Away, Ifs, Reread, Rewriting, Stills, Throw

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