Eden Robinson Quotes

I have a philosophy that everything you write doesn't have to be good for everybody. There are going to be people that get irritated by some of the things I write-including my parents. And then there are going to be people that you draw in because of the pointedness of certain things.

I don't have control over how people choose to perceive me. The only thing I have control over is my writing.

The thing that has always baffled me about people's perception of my writing is the sense that I'm a very controversial, opinionated, polarizing person. I feel like I write about things that I'm interested in, and I describe why they're interesting to me. I could be negative, I guess. It's far easier to write why something is terrible than why it's good.

My pictures are complex and so am I. When I am almost symbolistic in writing, there is a more limiting difference’s of accepting, while I can be even more complex in the photographs and people can usually accept them within the framework of their own limitations or lack of limitations – there is no dictionary meaning… they can look up for the photographic image and allow it to confuse them.

There is no such thing as an artist - only the world, lit or unlit, as the world allows.

When people give you a writing assignment, they're asking what you think. That's the very opposite of being an actor. When you're an actor, no one wants to hear what you think.

I'm just writing about people. People are dark and complicated. I'm trying to tell the truth; that's all that I do.

I write fiction and I'm told it's autobiography, I write autobiography and I'm told it's fiction, so since I'm so dim and they're so smart, let them decide what it is or it isn't.

I want to show people how I really am. Most people are only familiar with some of the headlines.

My approach is simple. It is nothing other than what I am thinking at the time I make each piece of clothing, whether I think it is strong and beautiful. The result is something that other people decide.

I knew right from the beginning that if I was going to write a book, I would write my version of the truth and then put it out there for people to decide if they will accept it or hate me.

Books are really fun because your 'voice' is pretty undiluted. There is a very direct connection between yourself and your audience. You will have an editor, but their job is to help you clarify or improve your voice, not change it.

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.

I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No - I must keep my own style & go on in my own way; and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.

A non-event ... is better to write about than an event, because with a non-event you can make up the meaning yourself, it means whatever you say it means.

If you can't write a story that pleases yourself, you will never please the public. But in writing the story forget the public.

Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It's not logical; it's psychological.

Don't worry about trying to develop a style. Style is what you can't help doing. If you write enough, you draw enough, you'll have a style, whether you want it or not. Don't worry about whether you're "commercial". Tell your own stories, draw your own pictures. Let other people follow you.

Some people seek to understand, and some people seek to portray what they want to portray.

A work of art is an echo chamber which repeats what people say about it.

Now comes the big question: What are you going to write about? And the equally big answer: Anything you damn well want. Anything at all .... as long as you tell the truth.

My films are misinterpreted all the time. I don't mind that. Everybody's films are misinterpreted. But there's no malice or stupidity in the people that misinterpret them. You know what you do, but someone else sees it, and they want to talk about it or write about it, and so they misinterpret them.

People ask me questions like, "Oh, you look so theatrical in your photographs. Is that what you're like when you walk down the street?" It's like, "Of course not." It's such a silly question - it's like being theatrical is a crime.

In literature, you know only what you imagine

I have - often say to people that you really don't get to decide your own legacy. I mean, what you do is, you try to be your own authentic self. And then people decide how they're going to interpret that and what it means to them.