A Quote by Emma Healey

I had so many people in my family with dementia that it felt like it belonged to me in a way. I feel like the same with teenage depression because I went through it. I feel like I'm allowed to write about it; it's mine.
I didn't feel like I belonged with my mom. And I didn't feel like I belonged with my dad. Since they were separated, I kind of felt like I didn't belong anywhere. So my grandparents gave me that stability, gave me the feeling like I had something and I came from some place.
We have this huge discourse on family in this country, but no one deconstructs it the same way. People talk about "the American family." The right wing has this thing - Focus on the Family. What the hell is that? I don't want to just discuss the issues - I want family to be a real part of the character of the novels I write, and I don't like to write things that feel like issue books.
I wrote Her First American and I always say it took me eighteen years. It took me that long was because after about five years I stopped and wrote Lucinella. I got stuck; it was too hard to write. Lucinella felt like a lark. I wanted to write about the literary circle because it amused me, and I allowed myself to do what I wanted to do. It's just one of the things I'm allowed to do if I feel like it.
I'm the best player in the draft. I truly feel that way. But I feel like you can ask anybody in the draft and they would have said the same thing. I just feel like I showcased it on many levels and I was put through so many different scenarios where I had to make the best out of it. And I had a lot of success with it.
If you don't connect yourself to your family and to the world in some fashion, through your job or whatever it is you do, you feel like you're disappearing, you feel like you're fading away, you know? I felt like that for a very very long time. Growing up, I felt like that a lot. I was just invisible; an invisible person. I think that feeling, wherever it appears, and I grew up around people who felt that way, it's an enormous source of pain; the struggle to make yourself felt and visible. To have some impact, and to create meaning for yourself, and for the people you come in touch with.
There are many people that can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. They have feelings of hopelessness and feel like they don't have any purpose on this Earth. Some of them feel like death is the only option they have. I know because I felt that way.
If the audience is responding very well to comedians that are hacks, and I don't do well, I don't feel as bad, because I feel like their taste is different than mine. They're laughing at somebody I would never laugh at, so that makes it okay, because obviously our tastes are not in the same place. And comedy is subjective, so I feel like maybe the failure wasn't all mine. I don't think they ever would have really enjoyed me. So sometimes that's a little easier, but not much.
The Catcher in the Rye had such a deep impact on me, because it felt like it was just Holden and me. I didn't feel like any other person had read that book. It felt like my secret. Writing that I identify with feels like it's just me and the writer. So I hope that whoever is reading what I do feels like that.
I felt like if I could get the epiphany out of the way in my drafting process, through my eighth or tenth draft, then that can just be part of how I've assembled the character, and then we can move on and move forward with it. In general, I don't ever want to feel smarter than my characters, because I just feel like that's not a great way to write a story.
I felt like a sinful person when I dated men and allowed them to feel for me in a way I knew I could never naturally feel for them. That felt wrong and a lie.
I've talked about tall poppy syndrome when I see people. I used to be like, 'Why am I feeling this way? What is that person taking from me that makes me feel inadequate?' That same feeling you feel when you feel uncomfortable because people start talking about racism, lean into that feeling, don't just look away from it, because you can't pretend.
Many people have told me that my books read like novels. Perhaps this is because, when I write, I feel I am really there, so strong is my feeling for my subject. On occasion, I have been so moved by the events I have been describing that I have felt like crying.
I want someone to be able to say, 'I relate to this person on The Five.' You feel like you belong. You kind of feel like it's family. They feel like they know us because we reveal so much about ourselves on the show.
For me, when I got married and when I had my daughter, those are two things that - when it does feel like work - makes me feel like I'm working for my family. I look around and just feel so blessed, because the opportunities that have been laid at my feet are second-to-none.
I feel like the future is unwritten. So many of the things that we write now haven't been about educating people on the environment, they've been about disseminating facts. But I feel like it could be productive to write something that explored directly the idea of fragility.
When I was growing up, I felt like I had to qualify it and say I'm British-Pakistani. But now I kind of feel like, in this day in age, this is what British looks like. It looks like me; it looks like Idris Elba, and hopefully through Nasir Khan, people will see that that's what an American can look like as well.
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