Simon Mawer
Simon Mawer
Simon Maweris a British author who lives in Italy...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionAuthor
dictated time
Only occasionally do I read new fiction. Most of my reading is heavily dictated by what I'm writing at the time.
blank novelist pundits
Pundits always have something to write about; the novelist just has a blank screen.
novelists perpetual
Sometimes I think that novelists suffer from P.C.S.: Perpetual Childhood Syndrome.
life reasons sports wrote
One of the reasons I wrote 'The Fall' is that climbing's more than a sport, it's a way of life. When you're in it, it's all you think about.
alone
I find it very easy to be alone. I'm a writer, for heaven's sakes!
academic convincing course
When writing fiction, you only have to know enough to be convincing on the page. I mean really convincing, of course - but you don't need academic depth.
busy cliffs climbing heard island itself sea sheer spent utterly village wonderful year
Guernsey itself was overcrowded, but its cliffs were utterly empty. I spent a wonderful year with a friend, climbing them. It was sheer magic: you went from this pretty, busy village of an island to the sea cliffs and heard nothing but the gulls and the waves.
thinking childhood suffering
Sometimes I think that novelists suffer from P.C.S.: Perpetual Childhood Syndrome.
faith discovery enemy
Faith is the enemy of discovery.
men depth prejudice
You can tell nothing from a man's appearance, nothing except the depths of your own prejudice.
powerful grief guilt
Grief and guilt. A powerful combination. Guilt like a liquid, a thin liquor, seeping everywhere, informing everything, saturating the whole-corrosive, like seawater, scented with the rich stench of ordure and corruption, and carrying with it hard, abrasive shards of grief.
shelter chance barricades
If God resides anywhere ... surely he shelters behind barricades of pure chance.
mind inability denial
The speed of the human mind is remarkable. So is its inability to face the obvious.
sin absence
Sin is absence of God. Nothing more, nothing less.