I wanted to invent myself as a fictional character. And I did, and it has caused a great deal of confusion.
Jeanette WintersonI am getting much more political as I get older. It's the duty of any writer, in particular, not to stand back from the world.
Jeanette WintersonWhat the myths say, is that you have to be the hero of your own life. You're the one who has to take charge of who you are, you're the one who has to take control. And also, you're the one who can bring something to the community.
Jeanette WintersonI think now that being free is not being powerful or rich or well regarded or without obligation but being able to love. To love someone else enough to forget about yourself even for one moment is to be free.
Jeanette WintersonI learned capacity for self-reflection very early, finding it through interior monologues that books are so good at and that visual media is so bad at because it's so boring - nothing's happening. In a book, you can be inside the narrator's head for 50 pages, and nothing needs to happen. Then you learn to be inside your own head without something needing to happen. It's a very good antidote to a crazy, restless, "what's next?" culture - that you can just be in your own head and nothing is happening except that this is a rich place. I love that.
Jeanette Winterson