Miriam Toews
Miriam Toews
Miriam Toewsis a Canadian writer, best known for her novels A Complicated Kindness and All My Puny Sorrows. She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for body of work. She is also a two-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a two-time winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionWriter
CountryCanada
Miriam Toews quotes about
certain decide feels forget good likes love might praise written
A person might see that I've blurbed a certain book and decide they want nothing to do with it! Like, 'If that reprobate Toews likes it, forget it!' So, it's a crapshoot. But it feels good to be able to praise a book that I love or that has been written by a new writer.
aspect comforting everybody knew russia safe
I remember a very nurturing, safe environment: everybody knew who I was, who my parents were, who my grandparents were, what part of Russia we were from originally. That was a really comforting feeling. Non-Mennonites, when they see that aspect of it, think it's a beautiful thing, and it is, but there's so much going on besides.
life material raw
In writing fiction, I can be free. I can use my life. The raw material is my experiences.
comic division humour
I don't see any division between the comic and the tragic. I feel like I'm writing about serious things, and humour is one of my tools. It's not contrived, just part of my world, part of the way things are to me.
depressed despair fame loving people point profound strike
A lot of times, people think that it doesn't make sense for people to be depressed when they have everything, a loving husband, a successful career, fame and fortune. I wanted to make this point that profound despair can strike anybody.
easier sort truth
This is a cliche, but in fiction, I feel it is easier for me to get to some sort of truth, some kind of more honest writing.
All the books I've read, I've read at the right moment.
girl cousin children
We Poor Cousins don’t care at all though, except for when we’re on welfare, broke, starving, unable to buy cool high-tops for our children or pay for their university tuition or purchase massive fourth homes on private islands with helicopter landing pads. But whatever, we descendants of the Girl Line may not have wealth and proper windows in our drafty homes but at least we have rage and we will build empires with that, gentlemen.
strong laughter forgiving-god
Her faith in a loving and forgiving God is strong, but she worships laughter.
asking oneself
Perhaps depression is caused by asking oneself too many unanswerable questions.
dream revenge just-a-dream
Life being what it is, one dreams not of revenge. One just dreams.
sun plant sun-rise
...and I put on "All My Love" and watched the sun rise yet again and thought thank you Robert Plant for all your love but do you have anymore?
way lost ifs
If, along the way, something is gained, then something will also be lost.
grieving towns emptiness
It’s hard to grieve in a town where everything that happens is God’s will. It’s hard to know what to do with your emptiness when you’re not supposed to have emptiness.