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Lisa Jewell Quotes

Powerful Lisa Jewell for Daily Growth

If you feel that your father was lacking as a husband, it affects your own choice of man.

- Lisa Jewell

Father, Own, Feel, Lacking

I tried to write about my first marriage in a fictional version but got two pages into it and realised it was too personal. Then I came up with an old-fashioned love triangle, which became the plot for 'Ralph's Party.'

- Lisa Jewell

Love, Old-Fashioned, Became, Fictional

Ever since 'Single White Female,' the 1990 novel which was turned into a supremely scary film, the idea of a seemingly normal woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants has become an abiding literary trope.

- Lisa Jewell

Woman, Idea, Turned, Supremely

My parents' marriage was, on an aesthetic level, very pleasing to behold.

- Lisa Jewell

Aesthetic, Level, Very, Behold

My father, Anthony, was a textile agent who sold fabric in the West End and was away a lot. He was very glamorous. When he first met my mum, he swept her off into this big, social world.

- Lisa Jewell

Big, Very, Agent, Textile

My father was a self-employed textile agent, and the shop below his office was an art gallery.

- Lisa Jewell

Art, Agent, Shop, Textile

There's something uniquely unsettling about the unhinged woman on a single-minded mission. Especially when she's the last person you ever imagined to harbour a dark and seething soul.

- Lisa Jewell

Woman, Last, Harbour, Single-Minded

Don't do a hard sell or try to tell the agent that you're going to be a bestseller or the next John Grisham. This goes down very badly. If your work is good, then they are skilled enough to know this within a few pages.

- Lisa Jewell

Next, Very, Badly, Bestseller

My marriage is far from perfect. We're not hand-holdy and soft. We are snippy and bickery. We sleep in separate beds because we have no tolerance of each other's night-time idiosyncrasies.

- Lisa Jewell

Perfect, Other, Separate, Tolerance

If one of my romantic-comedy colleagues had written and directed 'Love Actually,' they would have been torn limb from limb. I thought it was awful, contrived, dreadful. I could see every twist and turn. I thought it was despicable. It was the writing that got me.

- Lisa Jewell

Love, Been, Torn, Twist

I would never, for the sake of the story or a twist, have a character do something that they just wouldn't do. I really couldn't. I'd rather miss out on the twist.

- Lisa Jewell

Something, Rather, Really, Twist

I must always, always have a box of Extra chewing gum in my bag because I have developed a terrible cheek-chewing compulsion. It's not only uncomfortable, but I look really weird when I'm doing it, and chewing gum is the only way I can stop myself.

- Lisa Jewell

Doing, Bag, Chewing Gum, Chewing

You feel undervalued when you write the kind of fiction I write.

- Lisa Jewell

Kind, Fiction, I Write, Undervalued

Publishers have published women's fiction into a corner, and now we are all trying to punch our way out of it. We just have to write the best books we possibly can and hope that, once the pink covers and Bridget Jones have faded from memory, we might finally be allowed just to be called writers.

- Lisa Jewell

Memory, Pink, Fiction, Possibly

Agents and publishers are always looking for something 'different,' a fresh viewpoint and a new voice, not just re-hashed versions of stuff that's gone before.

- Lisa Jewell

Voice, Always, Viewpoint, Agents

When I travel, I can leave everything at home apart from books. I curate my holiday reading rigorously and would be devastated if I found I'd left one at home.

- Lisa Jewell

Reading, Holiday, Curate, Devastated

I was made redundant from a job as a PA in a shirt-making company in 1996. I was devastated. I had been there for three years, and it was a job I really liked.

- Lisa Jewell

Been, Made, Had, Devastated

That whole idea of chick lit being a thing that you just lump all the commercial female writers into - it went on for years.I'd switch on the radio, and I'd hear, 'Two female authors are here to discuss chick lit - is it dead?' and I'd think, 'Argh, no, not again. Are we seriously still having this conversation?'

- Lisa Jewell

Here, Commercial, Idea, Discuss

People say 'chick lit,' and what they mean is 'crap.' And so even though you might sell 100,000 copies of a book, you're never going to win a prize. These are books that people don't just read, they devour them - they stay up into the early hours because they want to devour them.

- Lisa Jewell

Book, Prize, Copies, Chick

I don't think my first book was chick lit.

- Lisa Jewell

Book, Think, Lit, Chick

I don't really get into a writing routine until March or April, when I'll write a few hundred words a day, often in a cafe in the morning after the school run.

- Lisa Jewell

Words, Often, Hundred, Cafe

I write in cafes, never at home. I cannot focus at home, am forever getting off my chair to do other things. In a cafe, I have to sit still, or I'll look a bit unhinged.

- Lisa Jewell

Other, Still, I Write, Cafe

When we were kids, we couldn't wait to have our own rooms, not to have to share anymore. And that is what I love about having my own bedroom. It is mine. My sleep is mine. Both pillows are mine. If I wake up, it is me who has woken me up... It makes me feel like a grown-up. I love it.

- Lisa Jewell

Love, Wait, Rooms, Bedroom

Flowers would be wasted on me. I don't like valentines. I don't need gifts. I'm a pragmatic romantic.

- Lisa Jewell

Flowers, Need, Like, Pragmatic

My mother's childhood was complex, disjointed, and disturbing. As children, we would gather round and ask her to tell us again and again The Story of Her Childhood. It was Grimmsian, Andersenesque: a classic fairy tale replete with goodies and baddies.

- Lisa Jewell

Mother, Tell, Tale, Fairy

I never had one of those glorious young bodies that make older men and women weep. So I don't tend to look back with nostalgia or yearn for what I've lost. Because it was never all that.

- Lisa Jewell

Young, Back, Bodies, Older Men

I changed my mind about being a famous pop star when I realised that it meant I'd never be able to get on the Tube again.

- Lisa Jewell

Mind, Famous, Meant, Pop Star

I knew I wasn't the sort of person who could do a full-time job and write in the evening and at weekends.

- Lisa Jewell

Weekends, Full-Time, Could, Evening

I was brought up in the same house I was born in, and I lived there until I left home as an adult. I also went to a Catholic school, which was full of Irish girls whose parents never split up, so everyone I knew had these big family set-ups.

- Lisa Jewell

Big, Irish, Brought, Catholic

I take the six weeks of the school summer holidays off because I'm pretty sure I'm not going to look back on my life one day and say, 'Damn, I wish I hadn't spent so much time with my children.'

- Lisa Jewell

My Life, One Day, Weeks, So Much Time

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