I always say that in any roomful of people, I could hive a novel out of any one person’s family or life story. Jojo Moyes Read Quote
I started writing novels by not thinking about actually writing a whole novel – that felt altogether too daunting. I thought out a rough idea, then wrote chapter by chapter, and then by the time I’d hit 40,000 words, it was a challenge just to see if I could get to the end. Jojo Moyes Read Quote
My characters make incomprehensible decisions until you stand in their shoes. Then it makes more sense. Life is very rarely black and white, and most people are trying to do their best. I try not to judge. Jojo Moyes Read Quote
We seem to live in an age where we are quietly appalled by the idea of appetites, whether they be for sex, food or diamonds. Jojo Moyes Read Quote
You have to write the story that’s at the front of your head. There is no point in trying to write for the market; it won’t ring true. Jojo Moyes Read Quote
What love is depends on where you are in relation to it. Secure in it, it can feel as mundane and necessary as air – you exist within it, almost unnoticing. Deprived of it, it can feel like an obsession; all consuming – a physical pain. Jojo Moyes Read Quote
Love is the driver for all great stories: not just romantic love, but the love of parent for child, for family, for country. Jojo Moyes Read Quote
My go-to winter recipe is beef and butternut squash stew, cooked in the slow oven all day. Jojo Moyes Read Quote
Writers divide fairly cleanly into those who only work through what they hear and those who are more visual. I am the latter, where I lie down on my office floor and play scenes through my head to – cinematically, several times with different elements – to see what works. I can’t write a scene until I can see it. Jojo Moyes Read Quote
I always imagined a writer was someone who lived in an attic in Paris, but my mum instilled in me a belief that I could do anything – so I ended up writing my first novel while working nights as a news reporter. Jojo Moyes Read Quote