Diane Setterfield
Diane Setterfield
Diane Setterfieldis a British author whose 2006 debut novel, The Thirteenth Tale, became a New York Times No. 1 best-seller. It is written in the Gothic tradition, with echoes of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Her debut novel was turned into a television film...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth22 August 1964
baby wall reading
Still in my coat and hat, I sank onto the stair to read the letter. (I never read without making sure I am in a secure position. I have been like this ever since the age of seven when, sitting on a high wall and reading The Water Babies, I was so seduced by the descriptions of underwater life that I unconsciously relaxed my muscles. Instead of being held buoyant by the water that so vividly surrounded me in my mind, I plummeted to the ground and knocked myself out. I can still feel the scar under my fringe now. Reading can be dangerous.)
running wall lying
My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself. What succor, what consolation is there in truth, compared to a story? What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney? When the lightning strikes shadows on the bedroom wall and the rain taps at the window with its long fingernails? No. When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don't expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.
fascinated lives nieces notice people selves stories
I see people as haunted by the selves they don't know... I don't have children, but I have nieces and nephews, and one thing I notice is how fascinated they are by stories of their lives before they can remember.
narrow respect serious trash
Excessively narrow reading is unhelpful, certainly. Reading only Serious Literature is no better than reading only trash in this respect.
easy longest sounds took trust
You have to relax, write what you write. It sounds easy but it's really, really hard. One of the things it took me longest to learn was to trust the writing process.
books heart home knew later life man says serious visited
My mother says that after I first visited the home of the man I later married, she knew it was serious when I told her, 'Mum, he has more books than me!' So, books are at the very heart of my life.
believed gave life necessary settled several since
For several decades, I believed it was necessary to be extraordinary if you wanted to write, and since I wasn't, I gave up my ambition and settled down to a life of reading.
garden good ideas ladder spend time wish
I am always happy up a ladder with a paintbrush in my hand. And I wish I had more time to spend in the garden - not least because I get good ideas for writing when I'm out there.
exploring led literary writers
My liking for Scandinavian crime fiction led me into exploring literary writers from the same countries.
diary hers kept since
I have kept a reading diary since I was 18. I am jealous of my friend who has kept hers since she was ten.
abandoning addictive consciousness ghost haunting influenced losing pleasure worlds
The addictive pleasure of abandoning yourself to a book, of losing consciousness of your worries, your body, and your surroundings, to become a ghost haunting other worlds has influenced me in many ways.
book believe important
I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Books are for me, it must be said, the most important thing.
lonely
For it must be very lonely being dead.
dirty genius frail
My genius is not so frail a thing that it cowers from the dirty fingers of newspapernen.