Laurie Graham Quotes - 9quotes.com

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I almost always use first person voice in my novels. It has its limitations, but it gives a sense of immediacy that's hard to create with an anonymous, all-seeing narrator.
Written by Laurie Graham
Characters develop as the book progresses, but any that start to bore me end up in the wastepaper basket. In real life, we may have to put up with tedious people, but not in novels.
Written by Laurie Graham
As well as writing novels and doing short-order journalism, I am also the full-time carer of my husband, who has Alzheimer's. Each day feels like a race that must be run.
Written by Laurie Graham
The wheels of publishing never slow down.
Written by Laurie Graham
Not so very long ago, certainly well into the Thirties, a lady companion was a normal feature of life for widows or lone spinsters.
Written by Laurie Graham
The word 'carer' makes me think of someone with a nylon overall and a long list of 'clients' to wash before she finishes her shift. A companion was something unique. A kind of live-in friend.
Written by Laurie Graham
Times may have changed, but there are some things that are always with us - loneliness is one of them.
Written by Laurie Graham
My research process doesn't vary much. I do a little reading to establish a timeline and decide how I'm going to approach the story.
Written by Laurie Graham
I have a magpie mind, by which I mean I see and hear little things - photos, fragments of conversation - and store them away for future use.
Written by Laurie Graham
My preferred style is to write in first person, so I always have to play around with possible narrator voices until I find something that works.
Written by Laurie Graham
My early novels were very understated and English. Fourteen years ago, I met and married my American husband, and as I learned more about his background and culture, I became interested in using American voices.
Written by Laurie Graham
I've been lucky enough to travel widely. When you're based in Europe, it's very easy to go to Madrid or Budapest for the weekend. I also lived in Italy for ten years and now live in Ireland.
Written by Laurie Graham
I love working fictional characters into a piece of history. It plays to my strengths, which are characterization and dialogue, and assists me in my admitted weakness, plot.
Written by Laurie Graham
Personally, my interest in social history ends around 1959, by which time I was an adolescent. I've always attributed this to my particular sensibilities. I like formality and elegance, and I'm fundamentally conservative.
Written by Laurie Graham
I'm married to an American, and although we live in Europe, I think of myself as an honorary American.
Written by Laurie Graham
I speak pretty fluent American, though I do so with a strong British accent, and I love America: The scale and the variety of it are astonishing to someone not born there, and I'm convinced that its energy and generosity have somehow rubbed off on me and affected my writing. For the better.
Written by Laurie Graham
Sundown is often the worst time of day for people with dementia. They can become restless and difficult.
Written by Laurie Graham
Even professional, paid carers aren't always models of saintly behaviour - and they know they can knock off at the end of their shift to go home, take an uninterrupted shower, and have a normal conversation with someone.
Written by Laurie Graham
I hate to think I ever make my husband frightened or unhappy, but I suspect I do.
Written by Laurie Graham
My parents never told me I was beautiful, and for one very good reason. I wasn't. When your child is a tubby, bespectacled little oddity, as I was, it's important not to give them false expectations.
Written by Laurie Graham
The thing about praising beauty is that good looks are an unforgiving task- master, a Forth Bridge of a maintenance job. The passing years present their accounts. Younger models become available.
Written by Laurie Graham
I'm thankful my parents obliged me to live with the unvarnished truth: I might not have been a looker, but I was a better speller than the prettiest girl in my class, and I was funnier, too.
Written by Laurie Graham
Childhood doesn't have to be perfect, and children don't have to be beautiful. From a bit of grit may grow a pearl, and if pearl production doesn't materialise, the outcome will still be preferable to the shallowness of vanity.
Written by Laurie Graham
In grief, after even the happiest of relationships, we go over things again and again.
Written by Laurie Graham
I think my mother was baffled by me. We were polar opposites. She was shy and retiring. I was over-fond of the limelight. Many times in my life, I was conscious of embarrassing her with my carrying on.
Written by Laurie Graham
My mother was a fastidious and orderly homemaker. I was the messy but creative type. I picture her following behind me through life with a damp rag and an air of exasperation.
Written by Laurie Graham
I know my parents loved me - they certainly did everything they could for me - but displays of affection were kept on a distinctly low flame.
Written by Laurie Graham
Far more than dreading ending up in a care home myself, I dread having to put my husband in one.
Written by Laurie Graham
Caring burns a lot of fuel - psychological and physical, too, if any lifting is involved. The energy tank is soon emptied, and the toll caring takes is well documented. It's called carer burn-out.
Written by Laurie Graham
Dementia is quite unlike cancer or heart disease or any of those other conditions where you bargain with God for a cure or even just a bit more time.
Written by Laurie Graham

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