Carol Shields
Carol Shields
Carol Ann Shields, CC OM FRSCwas an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award in Canada...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 June 1935
CountryCanada
hard-work persons hard
It's hard work being a person, you have to do it every single day.
chapters self-discovery
There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not aloud.
thinking long people
Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose.
moving voice scolding
The scolding voice is her own, so abrasive and quick, yet so powerless to move her.
light movement said
nothing she did or said was quite what she meant but still her life could be called a monument shaped in a slant of available light and set to the movement of possible music
letting-go blessing long-walks
Go for long walks, indulge in hot baths, Question your assumptions, be kind to yourself, live for the moment, loosen up, scream, curse the world, count your blessings, Just let go, Just be.
morning powerful fall
In one day I had altered my life; my life, therefore, was alterable. This simple axiom did not call out for exegesis; no, it entered my bloodstream directly, as powerful as heroin. I could feel it pump and surge, the way it brightened my veins to a kind of glass. I had wakened that morning to narrowness and predestination and now I was falling asleep in the storm of my own free will.
novel monologues i-can
This is why I read novels: so I can escape my own unrelenting monologue.
book writing want
Write the book you want to read, the one you cannot find.
book reading moving
Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.
hands knowing want
We are too kind, too willing--too unwilling too--reaching out blindly with a grasping hand but not knowing how to ask for what we don't even know we want.
sleep breathing knowing
It's the arrangement of events which makes the stories. It's throwing away, compressing, underlining. Hindsight can give structure to anything, but you have to be able to see it. Breathing, waking and sleeping: our lives are steamed and shaped into stories. Knowing that is what keeps me from going insane, and though I don't like to admit it, sometimes it's the only thing.
life stories life-is
The recounting of a life is a cheat...even our own stories are obscenely distorted...
learning records forget
It occurs to her that she should record this flash of insight in her journal - otherwise she is sure to forget, for she is someone who is always learning and forgetting and obliged to learn again...