Author

The rain began again. It fell heavily, easily, with no meaning or intention but the fulfilment of its own nature, which was to fall and fall.

From Helen Garner

As in all matters involving love, which has so many different meanings, you find that the feeling that we label 'love' is not a simple feeling, it's a very complex one. Under the heading 'love' can come all sorts of rage and desperation.

From Helen Garner

I like poking my nose into other people's lives.

From Helen Garner

I'm very disturbed by violence against women when it is violence.

From Helen Garner

I suppose there must be idiots who dream of signing deals with publishers while fully intending to drink martinis in cool bars or ride around on skateboards. But the actual writers I know are experts in neurotic self-torture. Every page of writing is the result of a thousand tiny decisions and desperate acts of will.

From Helen Garner

I think some people wished I'd kept myself out of the book. But I kind of insist on it because I want the reader to share my engagement with the material, if you like, not pretend that I'm doing it completely intellectually.

From Helen Garner

Courts are supposed to be places of reason. But this, of course, is a fantasy. I mean, there is reason being used as a technique. But courts, in fact, are baths of emotions.

From Helen Garner

I think that there must be a point of self-immersion in a story that is a point of no return. You get far enough in that the story has really touched you to the core and deeply troubled you and made you unhappy and fearful, and then how do you get out of that? I'm a writer, so my way of getting out of that is to write.

From Helen Garner

That's the best thing that's ever happened to me, bar none, is having grandchildren and living by them and being part of their lives.

From Helen Garner

I don't understand my own sporadic collapses into passivity. Perhaps I never will.

From Helen Garner

Helen Garner

Notable Quotes

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Authors with Opposing Views

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