The best novel I wrote was one called ‘Crusoe’s Daughter,’ which never won any prizes. But I was getting somewhere in that. I’m not sure I have in any of the others. Jane Gardam Read Quote
I knew I had a lot to say. Not politically – politics have always confused me – but perhaps spiritually. Jane Gardam Read Quote
I was nearly 40 when I started. I had no fear that I wasn’t going to write. I knew it was just delayed. Then, my goodness, I never stopped. Jane Gardam Read Quote
I longed from a tiny child to get away on my own. When I was five, I walked out along the sands from Redcar, nearly all the way to Hartlepool. Jane Gardam Read Quote
While writing a novel, I don’t read anything new in fiction. I am too engrossed. Jane Gardam Read Quote
In modern novels, there is no one I want to copy. My style ‘is a poor thing, but it is my own.’ Jane Gardam Read Quote
I think the most dangerous influence for a young writer is to be treated with cynicism or discouragement. Jane Gardam Read Quote
I started to write as a child as soon as I could read, or even before, when my mother read me Beatrix Potter at bedtime. Writing seemed to me to be the only sensible way to live and be happy. Jane Gardam Read Quote
When I was young and the empire was beginning to disintegrate, the idea was absolutely unbelievable, particularly to children who’d been taught that the sun never set… that’s what all my books are about, the end of empire. Jane Gardam Read Quote
