Carol Shields Quotes

I love being a mother. I think it's the best thing I've ever done, and I personally feel that it's had a very positive effect on my work. I think it's an encouraging force for creativity, it feeds creativity - it did for me, certainly.

Everyone has early fiction fantasies, but it wasn't until my second child Betsy was born that I allowed the urge to write a novel bubble up.

It's no coincidence that I began writing the day my daughter started school. I knew everything I knew before I began to write, but I was raising two children and didn't have the time to get to the typewriter.

I never stop being a mother and I never stop being an artist. You understand? Which is probably why my kids are so creative, because it's not separated.

It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.

I can count all the ways in which being a mother has enriched my understanding of the world, of character, my sense of the future and my attachment to it. I can't imagine what kind of writer I'd be if I didn't have my kids.

The songs I write and the way I see the world have been affected a certain amount since I became a father.

I am inspired by many people. First and foremost, I'm inspired by my mother. She definitely helped her children to feel unconditional love and I want to be that same kind of mother.

Being a mother is probably the hardest job in the world. I feel like, in a lot of ways, children come into the world to teach us.

I couldn't have children, I tried to for years. I've never been pregnant in my life. When I was a girl and fooling around I was scared to death I'd get pregnant, and then when I got married and wanted to have children I couldn't have any. But I don't miss it. I did for awhile, but I realize that I am everybody's mother.

I have an incredible role model in my mom. She was a single mother raising two kids in New York.

I am who I am today because of my mother.

It is probably true that I would not have had as many children or mothers in my books without being a mother with children. It is definitely true that I would not have written about the Civil War without having a little guy who was obsessed with it.

A child's first teacher is its mother.

I just ultimately wanted to be a mother. I love children.

I have one son. Of everything I've done in my life, nothing matches the feeling of having life growing inside you.

I love performing, but I never really liked show business. My success is my family. I want to be more successful as a mother.

Children change you. They really do.

Becoming a mother is the best thing that's happened to me.

Being a mother is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me in my life.

Having kids sets a bomb off in your life. It really makes you examine who you are, what you believe in and what you want to be. And that is magical for creativity.

I always assumed that, like my mother before me, one day I would have children. When I was 5, my fantasy was to have a hundred dogs and a hundred kids.

I love being a dad, it keeps me fit and inspired and children are so funny. They always supply you with acting material!

What I really wanted to do, actually, was stay home and be a mom and have some more kids.

I adore acting; it's in my blood - quite literally - but I can honestly say the most creative thing in the world for me is being a mother.