Carol Shields quotes

Carol Shields was a Canadian author renowned for her insightful novels, short stories, and poetry. Her work often explored themes of domestic life, identity, and the complexities of everyday existence. She earned numerous literary awards and remains widely celebrated for her novel "The Stone Diaries." Here are 10 of her quotes:

This is why I read novels: so I can escape my own unrelenting monologue.

Carol Shields

Write the book you want to read, the one you cannot find.

Carol Shields

Open a book this minute and start reading. Don't move until you've reached page fifty. Until you've buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.

Carol Shields

Words are our life. We are human because we use language. So I think we are less human when we use less language.

Carol Shields

nothing she did or said was quite what she meant but still her life could be called a monument shaped in a slant of available light and set to the movement of possible music.

Carol Shields

Here's to another year and let's hope it's above ground.

Carol Shields

Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose.

Carol Shields

I don't think I would have been a writer if I hadn't been a mother. I wanted to construct something that contained some of these feelings that I had, some of these discoveries or revelations.

Carol Shields

I'm concerned about the unknowability of other people.

Carol Shields