Pat Barker quotes

Pat Barker is an acclaimed English writer best known for her novels exploring the impact of war and trauma, particularly the "Regeneration Trilogy." Her work often delves into historical events and their psychological effects on individuals. She is recognized for her powerful storytelling and nuanced portrayals of human resilience. Here are 7 of her quotes:

Culturally, the First World War is the war that stands in for other wars.

Pat Barker

Another person's life, observed from the outside, always has a shape and definition that one's own life lacks.

Pat Barker

Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer.

Pat Barker

Being a writer is a poverty trap. I mean, it's a terrible profession.

Pat Barker

'Undertones of War' by Edmund Blunden seems to get less attention than the memoirs of Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, but it is a great book.

Pat Barker

That balance between involvement and detachment is what novelists do. It's the ideal relationship between a novelist and a character, I think, total involvement and identity and empathy, stopping short of being autobiographical - in my case, anyway - but also quite detached.

Pat Barker