Sheila Heti

“Usually, you don't have commitment promises in a friendship. Usually, it just grows.”

“I see friends of mine who have kids and continue to do their art. It's deeply impressive. I can't even fit an Amazon return into the day. It's been sitting on my desk for two weeks.”

“Most fiction writers are driven to find their own 'voice,' but I am more interested in the voices of others.”

“Life is not a harvest. Just because you have an apple doesn’t mean you have an orchard. You have an apple. Put a fence around it. Once you have put a fence around everything you value, then you have the total circle of your heart.”

“The main problem I've always had with fashion media is that women are encouraged to copy other women.”

“Tove Jansson was the most successful Finnish illustrator and writer of children's books of her day, and she was the most widely read Finn abroad. She began her life as an artist early - she had her first drawing published at fifteen.”

“Writing plays, I've always felt a little like I'm guessing - less sure of what's good and what's not good. I think that's because it's not a complete work of art.”

“I've always had individual friends, but I didn't find the people I wanted to learn from as an adult until my mid-twenties.”

“There's something about a woman's life choices that invites commentary, whether it's been invited or not.”

“A daughter is more difficult than a rose.”

“I wanted to talk to a lot of women about their experiences along the path to motherhood - or along the path to not being a mother.”

“I don't know what that line is between fiction and non-fiction that other people have in their minds, but to me, when I'm writing, it's just like whatever the next sentence should be is the next sentence. It's not this artificial division.”

“Renown is something people have always wanted, but maybe what's modern is that it's considered a virtue, this desire, rather than a vice. I might be wrong about this.”

“I've written about women's lives, and I just want to write about them from being a woman. I don't need feminism on top of that when I'm writing.”

“In my experience, women who are taken seriously take themselves seriously. It's not what you wear.”

“I didn't wander into motherhood or nonmotherhood unconsciously, recklessly. I gave it due consideration.”

“I don't think 'Motherhood' is a map for women. I would never say that it's a template for every woman in response to her biology.”

“Every choice you make has higher stakes - or that's how it feels.”

“No child, through her own will, can pull a mother out of her suffering, and as an adult, I have been very busy.”

“For myself, I feel more natural writing stories or novels than writing plays. I feel more like myself, like I can express myself better, and like I have a greater clarity about what I want to do.”