Fay Weldon
Fay Weldon
Fay Weldon CBE FRSLis an English author, essayist and playwright, whose work has been associated with feminism. In her fiction, Weldon typically portrays contemporary women who find themselves trapped in oppressive situations caused by the patriarchal structure of British society...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth22 September 1931
lying congratulations school
I have never got on with the quietist movements: they lapse too easily into self-congratulations: I have found the oneness, you have not. I prefer to look outside myself if I possibly can, not inside. Meditation reminds me too forcibly of being made to lie on a mat at nursery school and take an hour's nap.
memories thinking presses
memory is so selective; wishful thinking presses it into service all the time.
ignored pessimism prophet
The prophets of doom, in my experience, are generally ignored and usually right.
space giving poetry
Poetry, I thought then, and still do, is a matter of space on the page interrupted by a few well-chosen words, to give them importance. Prose is a less grand affair which has to stretch to the edges of the page to be convincing.
stubborn poverty bounds
Poverty is a stubborn thing: you seldom escape it with one bound.
pride thinking
Pride is what you can afford or think you can afford.
believe mean thinking
Instinct' usually just means our conditioning to believe this or believe that, without thinking to investigate.
circles forever useless
Sound waves do not die out. They travel forever and forever. All our sentences are immortal. Our useless bleatings circle the universe for all eternity.
husband wife infidelity
one tends to suspect others of what one is guilty of oneself. The unfaithful wife is quick to suspect the husband of infidelity.
fiction elements literature
Fiction, on the whole, and if it is any good, tends to be a subversive element in society.
understanding fiction literature
Fiction stretches our sensibilities and our understanding, as mere information never can.
perseverance defeat accepting
There was no such thing as defeat if you didn't accept it.
fall support novelists
Novelists... fashioning nets to sustain and support the reader as he falls helplessly through the chaos of his own existence.
pain women good-woman
Man seems not so much wicked as frail, unable to face pain, trouble and growing old. A good woman knows that nature is her enemy. Look at what it does to her.