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Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Michelle Paver Quotes

Even if you plan your book, the actual writing is unplanned.

– Michelle Paver

All stories come from the subconscious – which is why it doesn’t make sense to over-plan.

– Michelle Paver

My mother had to stop me reading to make me go and get some fresh air. I used to get so annoyed. She actually had to sit on my book because, otherwise, I would find it.

– Michelle Paver

I didn’t wake up one day and think, ‘I’m not going to have children.’ My mother was a housewife and brought up three children, so I just thought it would happen.

– Michelle Paver

When a wolf doesn’t want to do something, they look really cute.

– Michelle Paver

Why do so many children love the idea of being snowed in or shipwrecked, of having to survive on one’s own? When I was a child, I was no exception. I wanted to hunt with a bow and arrow like the Stone Age people: to skin deer and build my own shelter. And I desperately wanted a wolf. As we lived in London, my options were limited.

– Michelle Paver

For a child, reading a book can be such an intense experience.

– Michelle Paver

I’ve climbed Stromboli when it’s erupting, which is quite a heavy climb: three hours with a helmet to get to the top. When you’re there, and it’s dark, and you can see this eruption and feel it, it’s quite different to watching it on TV.

– Michelle Paver

I live on my own, happily, and I’ve never wanted children, but it did occur to me one day that there’s part of me in ‘Torak’ – he’s a loner, I’m a loner – as there’s part of me in ‘Renn,’ who’s quite waspish. I think, in some senses, ‘Torak’ is the son I never had.

– Michelle Paver

I wanted to write a very simple story about a boy, a wolf, a girl, a bear and a forest, so I thought I might set it in the past. I didn’t realise that it went back to when I was 10: I used to love the Stone Age when I was a kid and wanted to live in it, and I got rid of my bed and slept on the floor, but I didn’t remember it.

– Michelle Paver

I actually carry a little picture of a wolf in my wallet, rather like people carry a picture of their kids. The reason I do that is to remind myself why I’m doing this, to remind myself of the story.

– Michelle Paver

Indigenous people all over the world take quite a lot of trouble with their hair and their clothes.

– Michelle Paver

I’m constantly being surprised and finding unplanned things – because the writing is a process of experiencing things on the ground with the characters.

– Michelle Paver

I talk to children in schools all over the world, and I’ve found that both boys and girls are fascinated by how hunter-gatherers manage to survive entirely on what’s around them in their environment: trees, rocks, animals and plants.

– Michelle Paver

I think true wilderness can still be found, but it’s hard to reach and dangerous when you get there, which is probably why it still exists.

– Michelle Paver

People often ask writers where they get their inspiration, and for me, the short answer is that I haven’t a clue; I’m just grateful that I get them.

– Michelle Paver

I saw myself as a trailblazer in the 1980s as a female lawyer in the City. It was exciting, as women were outnumbered by men five to one. But while I had this sense of trailblazing, in reality, I wasn’t pushing boundaries; it was just a personal myth I’d created, as I was doing a job I wasn’t enjoying.

– Michelle Paver

Doing field trips rather than simply researching online allows me to experience the story from the point of view of my main character; you can’t get that by sitting at a desk.

– Michelle Paver

Mostly, research is much more fun than the actual writing.

– Michelle Paver

I would love to live in the wilds of nowhere, and when writing ‘Chronicles,’ I would occasionally rent a cottage in the middle of nowhere that had no mobile reception, but I’m not about to move away from my family.

– Michelle Paver

A lot of my writing is wish-fulfilment, making things the way I want them to be.

– Michelle Paver

I’m quite happy trekking around Greenland on my own, but those big book tours in America or the Far East are the only time I ever really feel lonely.

– Michelle Paver

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