Carole Morin Quotes

I fell in love with money before I had any and it’s a myth that the best romances end in heartbreak.

I wanted to wake up with a new name, a new hair colour, and almost the same heart.

Writing is hard work. Even when you start with the raw ingredients – a mad family, a sense of humour, talent…it’s hard work. But you do get to sit around in silk pyjamas all day.

The sum of the rivals is constant.

God for all anyone knows could be Cary Grant.

Imagination is all we have in the end.

Writing is prophesy. Don’t write anything unless you want it to come true.

Lies are easy to believe in but the truth sounds false.

Characters in novels are all fiction like the world they live in. Of course Vivien Lash has things in common with me but if she actually was me I wouldn’t have been able to invent her. And I’m not plotting to murder my husband! The closest connection between me and my characters is that we live in a city that’s recognisable as London, but it’s a version of London that came out of my head.

It’s all real. It came out of my head. Everything in there is real. Even the things invented and imagined.

There’s a theory that if you have an interesting childhood then you have enough material to last a lifetime. But that implies that art is always autobiographical when reinvention and imagination are the most important elements. But it doesn’t hurt to have a mad family! Of course I didn’t notice until I’d escaped – when I left home as a teenager on a diplomatic scholarship – how odd my family were.

I read Wuthering Heights when I was seven. I stole a copy from the library. We weren’t allowed books in the house because they’re ‘dirty and dusty’. My mum had a shelf of fake leather books which my dad used to hide whisky behind. I used to die of embarrassment every time a visitor tried to pick up a book and realized it was fake. The library was forbidden so it became exotic and sexy in my imagination. I was dying to get in there and read a book!

Betrayal is a cliché … Lies are so suburban. But murder is nice and clean.

Irene the Slut sits on top of the television, the atmosphere of Russian vodka about her skin.

A sinning nun, her face in a plate of cakes, caught my eye as I descended on the moving stair.