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I’m always determined that as a novelist I’m going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

Chris Cleave

Is it my fault if I do not look like an English girl and I do not talk like a Nigerian? Well, who says an English girl must have skin as pale as the clouds that float across her summers? Who says a Nigerian girl must speak in fallen English…?
CHRIS CLEAVE

Clouds Girl Summer
Yet war doesn’t end with armistice, it only ends with forgiveness and reconciliation.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Armistice Ends War
The reason why I love people, and writing about them, is because they don’t always respond with hate and anger. If they did I wouldn’t have a story to tell. Who wants to know about someone who was brutalised and became brutal? I’m interested in the exceptions.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Anger Hate Writing
Nobody has the time to sit down and explain the first world from first principles.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Down Nobody Principles World
I’m a much better writer for being a father.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Being Better Father Much
A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Dying Mean Scar
Still shaking, in the pew, I understood that it isn’t the dead we cry for. We cry for ourselves, and I didn’t deserve my own pity.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Cry Pity Understood
If I can’t write it would be as if I died.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Chasing Destroy Died Writing
Things that we have to really dare ourselves to do come quite naturally to others.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Dare Refuge Understand
I’m not happy with just repeating myself.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Happy Just Not Repairing
To be well in your mind you have first to be free.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Firsts Mind Wells
We leave it up to books and movies to talk about WWII on our behalf.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Behalf Books Movies
We were exiles from reality that summer. We were refugees from ourselves.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Reality Refugee Summer
I think, in common with a lot of novelists, I wasn’t the most athletic guy at school.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Guy School Thinking
Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Country Horror Suffering
I am a woman built upon the wreckage of myself.
CHRIS CLEAVE

Built Woman Wreckage

I’m always determined that as a novelist I’m going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

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I’m always determined that as a novelist I’m going to go out there and research my characters very thoroughly before I start writing.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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