Louise Brown

“Much of my reading time over the last decade and a half has been spent reading aloud to my children. Those children's bedtime rituals of supper, bath, stories, and sleep have been a staple of my life and some of the best, most special times I can remember.”

“Sometimes I like to play the soundtracks to famous musicals so we can all sing along. South Pacific is one of my favorites. Our neighbors must hate us.”

“Then I obviously didn't understand what it all meant, but I do now.”

“I used to think about how I was conceived quite a lot when I was about 10 or 11, but I don't think about it at all now that so many other babies have been born in the same way.”

“Remember that what you have is unique because it's your own special way of looking at the world.”

“a raped girl is bad for the family: it shows that they can’t protect their women; that they have little social standing; and that they’re not respectable. It’s worse for the victim because once a woman, or a girl—or a boy—is known as the target of a rape she becomes so despised, so shamed, so worthless that she turns into public property. No one is raped only once.”

“Another of them died last night. His body was in the bazaar this morning. It lay, with a collecting bowl at its feet, on the charpoy that is reserved for those who die without money or family to bury them. He looked desiccated and his skin had the sheen and color of the dates we eat to break our fast. There are new bodies on that charpoy every week.”

“I bought a selection of short, romantic fiction novels, studied them, decided that I had found a formula and then wrote a book that I figured was the perfect story. Thank goodness it was rejected.”

“I can't pick out one single book that had such a profound personal impact.”

“Reading is my greatest luxury.”

“It took a brave editor in the U.S. to sign a contract for Dancing Girls, and without her belief in the book, I'm not sure it would ever have found its way into print.”

“I thought it was something peculiar to me. I thought I was abnormal.”

“I could write an entertaining novel about rejection slips, but I fear it would be overly long.”

“If you can't return a favor, pass it on.”

“I have a good collection of cookery books. This is not so much because I like cooking, but because I like eating.”

“The young women in my classes are feisty and clever and believe, often with the passion of youthful optimism, that feminism is a battle already won. I worry for them - and for my daughters, too.”

“The Dancing Girls of Lahore was offered to dozens of British publishers and was turned down by everyone. It is still on offer in the U.K., but I'm not confident there will be any takers.”

“Don't write the book you think publishers want to commission. Plenty of other writers will be doing the same thing.”

“I'm working on a nonfiction book on Nepal and a novel about diasporas.”

“People still come up to me and ask whether I am Louise Brown or if they've seen me somewhere else before.”