There are people out there who genuinely love literature, who genuinely love to read and read widely, who will never like, or even necessarily get, my books. That was a hard one to swallow, to not feel slighted by. – Lynn Coady
We live in a society that celebrates familial connection above any other kind of relationship. We are shown photos of our great-grandparents and encouraged to marvel over facial similarities. We are told to take pride in our bloodlines, celebrate our ancestry. – Lynn Coady
Filtering can be a very good thing when it comes to human relationships and familial harmony. Yeah, filtering is often an absolute necessity. – Lynn Coady
I still find the idea of a research-heavy or historical novel daunting. That’s something I’ve had in mind for a while: like, would you research for a year and then start writing? I sit down, and I just don’t know how to write it. – Lynn Coady
Considerations of plot do a great deal of heavy lifting when it comes to long-form narrative – readers will overlook the most ham-fisted prose if only a writer can make them long to know what happens next. – Lynn Coady
I spent so many years in terror of ‘making it legal’ because the expression rang all too true – the wedding ritual struck me as nothing but a flowery front for the fulfilment of countless, tedious contracts and obligations. – Lynn Coady
Something I’ve always written about is social expectations: that the eyes of the community are on you all the time, expecting you to line up with certain social norms, certain behaviours. Whenever you forgot about them, they’d be strongly reiterated to you, in no uncertain terms. – Lynn Coady
We are all somebody’s children, and when we’re in pain, we regress, instinctively looking to our parents to make everything better. – Lynn Coady
A dominant misconception among believers is that their atheist brethren are a slavering pack of hell-bound debauchees, gleefully wining and wenching their way through life while loudly professing their amorality. – Lynn Coady
It makes me proud not just to be a Canadian writer but to be a Canadian, to live in a country where we treat our writers like movie stars. – Lynn Coady
Let’s not confuse traditional behaviours with good manners. The definition of etiquette is gender neutral – it simply means we strive at all times to ensure a person in our company feels at ease. – Lynn Coady
True adulthood occurs the moment we grasp that the people who raised us do not exist solely for our comfort and reassurance. From that point on, the steady stream of unconditional love and support we’ve expected from them all our lives has to flow both ways. – Lynn Coady
No one expects the doormat to stand upright, shake itself off, and amble down the street to seek its own happiness. – Lynn Coady
Readers who claim a preference for short-form over long often tell me it’s because they don’t have time to commit to a book-length chunk of writing. – Lynn Coady
That’s what fascinates me about these writers’ retreats: You’re in these small spaces with small groups of people, and all of the sudden, the spotlight is shining on you harder than it normally is. – Lynn Coady
The fundamentals for me are character and conflict. I put character first because readers will be indifferent to conflict if they are indifferent to the character who is experiencing it. – Lynn Coady
I think, as writers, our first responsibility is to writing an honest story. Tell the story you want to tell, without pulling your punches. – Lynn Coady