Home > Author > Claire Fuller
21 " Everyone needs a place to escape to, even if it’s only inside their head. "
― Claire Fuller , Swimming Lessons
22 " Yours have passed away too?” I asked her. She shrugged and said, “Peter still has both of his, squirrelled away in Devon or Dorset.” Her voice was low, whispering a secret. “I think he’s embarrassed by them —their cheeks are too ruddy, or they look too much like their dogs.” I stared at her, shocked, until she laughed and I realised she was joking. "
― Claire Fuller , Bitter Orange
23 " If food is worth eating, it's worth eating properly "
24 " and all books are created by the reader. "
25 " A book becomes a living thing only when it interacts with a reader. "
26 " Writing does not exist unless there is someone to read it, and each reader will take something different from the novel, from a chapter, from a line...a book becomes a living thing only when it interacts with a reader. What do you think happens in the gaps-the unsaid things, everything you don't write? The reader fills them from their own imagination. But does each reader fill them how you want, or in the same way? Of course not. "
27 " Fiction is about readers. Without readers there is no point in books, and therefore they are as important as the author, perhaps more important. But often the only way to see what a reader thought, how they lived when they were reading, is to examine what they left behind. "
28 " Best let hidden things remain hidden, I should have said. Sleeping dogs and all that. If I was then the woman I am now I would have shouted and stood between the sledgehammer and the door that day, when Peter opened the Museum. "
29 " <...> and in the end, didn’t she get exactly that? "
― Claire Fuller , Unsettled Ground
30 " But often the only way to see what a reader thought, how they lived when they were reading, is to examine what they left behind. "
31 " it occurred to me that it was a type of control; Cara could be generous when it suited her, or not, when it didn’t. "
32 " Who wouldn’t want to rewrite their past, if it means it will change their future? "
33 " The first thing you ever said to me was "What's your name?" I remember thinking that your voice had been made for bedtime radio. "
34 " Gil collected them for the handwritten marginalia and doodles that marked the pages, for the forgotten ephemera used as bookmarks. "
35 " I shifted and the stiff underwear creaked, a loud awkward noise which none of us commented on. "
36 " Writing does not exist unless there is someone to read it, and each reader will take something different from a novel, a chapter, from a line. A book becomes a living thing only when it interacts with a reader. "
37 " Are you superstitious?’ This time I must have said it aloud, because he answers. ‘Black cats and rabbits’ feet?’ ‘That sort of thing,’ I say, and he leans in further to listen. ‘White cows and butterflies, field mice and hares. I saw a hare once in the library at Lyntons.’ Victor tenses, hopeful for a net that he can use to save me. A child’s net on a stick that he can thrust into the rushing water where I spin and turn in the eddies. He would scoop me out if he could. But there’s nothing now that will stop me flowing downstream with the current. Soon I’ll reach the falls and be swept over the brink, and that will be the end of me. "
38 " Flora is like a car, she wants everything on her terms. If I’d asked her to come with me for a swim, she’d probably have said no. Occasionally she’ll allow me to stroke and pet her, but if I put out an uninvited hand she’ll often scratch and claw, and run away. "
39 " You existed for me before I’d ever set eyes on you. I knew I’d find you; it was only a matter of waiting. "