Deborah Moggach
Deborah Moggach
Deborah Moggachis an English writer. She has written eighteen novels including The Ex-Wives, Tulip Fever, These Foolish Thingsand Heartbreak Hotel...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth28 June 1948
side
You can cycle through London on the side streets, which are less polluted - and much more interesting anyway.
dinner dog evening heath incredibly london morning perfect swim walk work
My perfect day is to work incredibly well in the morning and write something wonderful, then take the dog for a walk and go for a swim in the ladies' ponds on Hampstead Heath or work in my allotment. Then I get tarted up in the evening and go out in London to dinner or the cinema.
bluegrass both house near side sitting type writers
My parents were both writers - they would type their manuscripts sitting side by side on the veranda of our house near Watford - so I wanted to do something different. I wanted to be a bluegrass singer, an architect, a landscape gardener, or to do something with animals.
almost burden domestic ease huge impossible lead living people places pressure spend time
Living together places a huge burden on the other person to be lover, friend, entertainments manager, chef, domestic help, which is almost impossible and can lead to disappointment. If you don't live together, you spend more time with other people and ease the pressure off your lover.
bringing buy children life load rather sterile stuck washing
Bringing my two children up while writing was just a part of life. I'd much rather have had their interruptions than been stuck in a sterile office. This way, I had welcome distractions. I had to load the washing machine, I had to go out and buy lemons.
apart children expensive hardly maintain people possible
Living apart is hardly possible if people have children together. It can also be more expensive to maintain two homes. But then, it's expensive to break up when you live in one property.
change doors happens life opened takes
'Tulip Fever' did change my life. It did that thing that sometimes happens when a book takes off - it opened doors on to whole other worlds.
life
I've had a very lucky life because I'm of this generation where everything was possible.
teacher trained worked
I wanted to be a landscape architect, but I trained as a teacher; I worked in publishing; I was a waitress.
avoidance drops family seat sensitive slide watching window writer
The traditional writer is a sensitive only child, asthmatic, who sits on the window seat watching the drops of rain slide down the pane, very introspective. I'm not inward-looking. I would never go to a shrink. I don't want to know what I'm thinking. I don't really like discussions in my family. It may be an avoidance thing.
easy eat eggs food four grain island love morning red sound throw
I have four Rhode Island Red hens. I get two eggs from them a day. They're feathered dustbins that eat leftover food and weeds, and they're easy to look after - I throw some grain at them in the morning, take the eggs and that's it. I love the sound of clucking.
ancient falling imagine looked love people searching stay women
When I was young, I couldn't imagine women of 60 falling in love. For one thing, people used to stay married; they weren't out in the jungle, searching for romance. Besides, these women just looked so ancient - permed hair, beige cardis.
hideous shut whining writers
Whining writers are a hideous sight; we should really shut up, because we are lucky if we can cobble together a living from all of this.
beats eternal
Nothing beats weaving through the rush-hour traffic or whizzing past the eternal gridlock that is the Strand.