All writers are liars. They twist events to suit themselves. They make use of their own tragedies to make a better story… They are terrible people. Nina Bawden Read Quote
People who don’t read seem to me mysterious. I don’t know how they think or learn about other people. Novels are a very important part of our education. Nina Bawden Read Quote
I was cleaning out the pigsty at a farm in Wales, where my mother had rented a room, when the results of my final school exam were handed to me by the postman, along with the news that I had a state scholarship to Oxford. I had waited for this letter for so many weeks that I had abandoned hope, deciding that I had failed ignominiously. Nina Bawden Read Quote
I like stirring the pot – I think it’s part of my duty, to shake people up a bit – make them look at things in a different way. Nina Bawden Read Quote
I met my second husband on a bus. We looked at each other and that was it. We were both married to other people at the time and behaved badly, but we didn’t seem to have any choice. We were very happy for nearly 50 years and would still be together if it wasn’t for the bloody railways. Nina Bawden Read Quote
The train we had so confidently boarded had been speeding at almost 100 miles an hour and it had derailed. Someone, I can’t remember who, showed me a newspaper photograph of the carriage we had been sitting in tilted on its side on a station platform next to a large notice that said Welcome to Potters Bar. Nina Bawden Read Quote