Patricia MacLachlan Quotes

I've never set a book in Europe. I've lived in Europe three times, but somehow or other it wasn't the experience that engaged me in that way.

I was born in Brooklyn, but I never lived there.

You can take the girl out of Beverly Hills, but you can't take the Beverly Hills out of the girl.

I was born in New Jersey and lived there until I was about 10, so Jersey is in my roots.

It's really hard to escape where you were brought up. Not that I would ever want to escape it.

I've been writing since I was really young.

Who we are cannot be separated from where we're from.

I always say that I'm a writer who writes more from place than race.

I was raised in New Jersey - Long Branch.

You have to be smart enough not to dismiss where you came from. It may not be all we are, but it makes up for a great deal.

If anybody asks me where I'm from, my first inclination is to say, 'Washington,' because that's where I grew up meaningfully.

I started writing stories as a child.

You can't run from your roots.

As a novelist, where do you go to tap into memories, and impressions, and sensations? It's usually, in my experience, your early life, before you started thinking of yourself as a writer, because somehow those experiences are unadulterated.

It's really important to go back to where you come from.

I don't even know how to define myself. I'm a person who writes. It's something I enjoy, and hopefully people enjoy it as well.

All I can do is take influences from where I was raised.

I think I've written about family and things in 'Taipei' which could be considered Asian culture.

I am first of all from La Castellane and Marseille.

There's a lot of influences that I have from Detroit that are subliminal. I mean, I spent the first 10 years of my life there. My mom and dad were born and raised there, so a lot of that rubbed off on me. When I get angry, sometimes a Detroit accent comes out.

I have always written. I was one of those kids who would always fill exercise books with girls and telepathic ponies.

I've been writing for as long as I can remember, and reading even before that. My mom still has stories that I wrote when I was in kindergarten. I was a reader and a re-reader. That's the main reason I became a writer.

I wrote my first novel and my second novel in Chicago. It was the place where I became a writer. It's my favorite city.

Your background and environment is with you for life. No question about that.

Home is one's birthplace, ratified by memory.