Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson, OBEis an award-winning English writer, who became famous with her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a semi-autobiographical novel about a sensitive teenage girl rebelling against conventional values. Some of her other novels have explored gender polarities and sexual identity. Winterson is also a broadcaster and a professor of creative writing...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth27 August 1959
people misery miserable
Happiness is a specific. Misery is a generalization. People usually know exactly why they are happy. They very rarely know why they are miserable.
ordinary shapes accepting
I do not accept that life has an ordinary shape, or that there is anything ordinary about life at all. We make it ordinary, but it is not.
heart may finals
It may be that you are settled in another place it may be that you are happy but the one who took your heart wields final power.
real book thinking
When we learn to read, it's a real product of civilization and a civilized society. It affects your brain. It affects the way you think, and it gives you that capacity for self-reflection that you simply do not have without the agency of books.
writing fiction stories
Part fact part fiction is what life is. And it is always a cover story. I wrote my way out.
character confusion literature
I wanted to invent myself as a fictional character. And I did, and it has caused a great deal of confusion.
second-chance remember moments
It's hard to remember that this day will never come again. That the time is now and the place is here and that there are no second chances at a single moment.
believe life-is-too-short people
I will do whatever I have to do to reach people with the things I believe are important. Life is too short not to do everything you can.
love powerful thinking
I think now that being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligation but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.
discovery risk values
There is no discovery without risk and what you risk reveals what you value.
love winning years
You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play. It’s the playing that’s irresistible. Dicing from one year to the next with the things you love, what you risk reveals what you value.
moving book reading
I love the apparent quiet of reading a book. You sit there; you're not really moving. It looks very solitary. It looks very boring, but actually it's the most exciting place because it's going on for you, and you're in that relationship. In that sense, it's like being with a lover. Nobody else can intrude on that space. It's the two of you. It's your own world.
numbness waiting leaving
The body shuts down when it has too much to bear; goes its own way quietly inside, waiting for a better time, leaving you numb and half alive.
love dream morning
While I can’t have you, I long for you. I am the kind of person who would miss a train or a plane to meet you for coffee. I’d take a taxi across town to see you for ten minutes. I’d wait outside all night if I thought you would open the door in the morning. If you call me and say ‘Will you…’ my answer is ‘Yes’, before your sentence is out. I spin worlds where we could be together. I dream you. For me, imagination and desire are very close.