Helen Dunmore quotes

As individuals, we are shaped by story from the time of birth; we are formed by what we are told by our parents, our teachers, our intimates. (Helen Dunmore)
If we understand the past, we are more likely to recognise what is happening around us. View quote
Helen Dunmore
Mourning Ruby is not a flat landscape: it is more like a box with pictures painted on every face. And each face is also a door which opens, I hope, to take the reader deep into the book. View quote
Helen Dunmore
I can remember being in my pram: children stayed in their prams much longer then than they do now. A big bouncy pram with black covers and a hood with metal clips that could trap your fingers. I was looking up at my sister who was sitting on the pram seat, with her back to me. View quote
Helen Dunmore
It is a violation which has obsessed the tyrants of the twentieth century. They do not want simply to kill their opponents, but to liquidate them, to deny that they have ever existed. View quote
Helen Dunmore
Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear. View quote
Helen Dunmore
I would like people to come into my Dreamworld and then choose to stay. View quote
Helen Dunmore
The language has got to be fully alive - I can't bear dull, flaccid writing myself and I don't see why any reader should put up with it. View quote
Helen Dunmore
Poets go through a very tough apprenticeship in the use of words. View quote
Helen Dunmore
To try to expunge an individual's history is a terrible violation. View quote
Helen Dunmore
I enjoy research; in fact research is so engaging that it would be easy to go on for years, and never write the novel at all. (Helen Dunmore)
I hope that readers will tear through my books because they can't stop themselves - and then, maybe, read them again and find new things there. View quote
Helen Dunmore
My first collection of poems was published by Bloodaxe Books, which was then a very new imprint. View quote
Helen Dunmore
A novel, in the end, is a container, a shape which you are trying to pour your story into. View quote
Helen Dunmore
Those who try to obliterate the past are injuring the present. View quote
Helen Dunmore
However, the difficulties and pleasures of the writing itself are similar for a novel with a historical setting and a novel with a contemporary setting, as far as I'm concerned. View quote
Helen Dunmore
However, I began to submit poems to British magazines, and some were accepted. It was a great moment to see my first poems published. It felt like entering a tradition. View quote
Helen Dunmore
I concentrate on the lives of individuals whom the reader comes to know and feel with intimately. View quote
Helen Dunmore
I have learned so much from working with other poets, travelling and reading with them, spending days discussing poems in progress. There is the sense that we are all, as writers, part of something which is more powerful than any of us. View quote
Helen Dunmore
I didn't choose Russia but Russia chose me. I had been fascinated from an early age by the culture, the language, the literature and the history to the place. View quote
Helen Dunmore
I was always influenced by language. (Helen Dunmore)
Writing children's books gives a writer a very strong sense of narrative drive. View quote
Helen Dunmore
The poets whom I knew then were all men and all seemed dauntingly sure of themselves - although I am sure that really they were as uncertain as I was. View quote
Helen Dunmore
When you are young you don't always realise how full of doubts everybody is. View quote
Helen Dunmore
In a world without air all you breathe is adventure! View quote
Helen Dunmore