Top 66 Michelle Paver Quotes

#1. "So I've got to find a mountiain that nobody's ever seen. And work out the answer to a riddle that nobody's ever solved. And kill a bear that nobody can fight."
Renn sucked in her breath. "You've go to try."

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #35989
#2. To experience the northern forest in the raw, I went to northern Finland and Lapland, travelling on horseback, and sleeping on reindeer skins in the traditional open-fronted Finnish laavu. I ate elk heart, reindeer and lingonberries, and tried out spruce resin: the chewing gum of the Stone Age.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #63821
#3. At university - when I was supposed to be studying biochemistry - I had tried to write a children's book about a boy and a wolf cub, and there was a paragraph in that which was from the wolf's point of view.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #83763
#4. I'd been interested in animal behaviour as a teenager and had thought of studying it at one point.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #99234
#5. There's always a choice,' said Torak, and walked backward off the cliff.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #137499
#6. I've wanted to write a ghost story for years, and my main aim was to write the most frightening ghost story that I could think of.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #167006
#7. Sometimes there's no warning. Nothing at all.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #207851
#8. If you're warm enough when you set out, you're wearing too many clothes.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #248439
#9. In a ghost story, usually you've got to hang on until daylight, and you'll be alright. But if daylight's four months away, then you have a problem.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #264478
#10. I'm constantly being surprised and finding unplanned things - because the writing is a process of experiencing things on the ground with the characters.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #272377
#11. In general, when I'm writing, I concentrate on the story itself, and I leave it to other people, such as agents and publishers, to work out who it's for.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #297593
#12. You cannot go and warn him," Saeunn said sternly. "It is too late. You would never find him."
"I know," said Renn without turning her head.
To herself she added, But I've still got to try.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #387507
#13. Never been so intensely watched by a creature who would kill me if it got the chance. I stared at it, and I felt death staring back. A

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #401360
#14. How odd, that light should prevent one from seeing.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #436596
#15. I would love to live in the wilds of nowhere, and when writing 'Chronicles,' I would occasionally rent a cottage in the middle of nowhere that had no mobile reception, but I'm not about to move away from my family.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #444589
#16. Run, Torak! The bear...is...possessed...

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #445018
#17. For a novelist, the great thing about the Stone Age people is that we know virtually nothing about their beliefs - which means that I get to make it up! But it's still got to be plausible.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #449448
#18. I sometimes wonder why I do so much research - I look at other successful writers, and I think it must just be so relaxing to write about flying horses or something, but I have to make it plausible.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #528672
#19. I'm quite happy trekking around Greenland on my own, but those big book tours in America or the Far East are the only time I ever really feel lonely.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #537803
#20. I talk to children in schools all over the world, and I've found that both boys and girls are fascinated by how hunter-gatherers manage to survive entirely on what's around them in their environment: trees, rocks, animals and plants.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #548517
#21. When a wolf doesn't want to do something, they look really cute.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #556335
#22. All stories come from the subconscious - which is why it doesn't make sense to over-plan.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #580765
#23. Fear is the loneliest feeling. You can be in a throng of people, but if you're afraid, you're on your own.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #613764
#24. To get the feel of the polar night, I went back to Spitsbergen in winter. I went snowshoeing in the dark and experimented with headlamps and climbed a glacier in driving snow.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #698815
#25. I actually carry a little picture of a wolf in my wallet, rather like people carry a picture of their kids. The reason I do that is to remind myself why I'm doing this, to remind myself of the story.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #729430
#26. I loved the myths of ancient Greece and Egypt.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #772116
#27. I live on my own, happily, and I've never wanted children, but it did occur to me one day that there's part of me in 'Torak' - he's a loner, I'm a loner - as there's part of me in 'Renn,' who's quite waspish. I think, in some senses, 'Torak' is the son I never had.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #791663
#28. Men like that - when they know they won't be found out - they will do anything.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #828452
#29. Indigenous people all over the world take quite a lot of trouble with their hair and their clothes.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #885973
#30. It's the little details I love. How to fletch your arrows with owl feathers, because owls fly silently, so maybe your arrows will, too. How to carry fire in a piece of smouldering fungus wrapped in birchbark. These are the things which help a world come alive.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #893550
#31. Vengeance burns,Torak." said Fin-Kedinn as the river bore him away. "It burns your heart. It makes the pain worse. Dont let that happen to you.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #902960
#32. My thirties merged into my forties, and I sort of gradually realised that I don't really want children. Now I'm glad I don't have them. Part of that is because I have my books.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #944127
#33. If you get a sense that your writing isn't quite working, change it. Or cut it out. Don't just tell yourself it'll do, because it won't.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1002552
#34. People often ask writers where they get their inspiration, and for me, the short answer is that I haven't a clue; I'm just grateful that I get them.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1002619
#35. I hate it when you see in films people with their anoraks flapping open in a blizzard. They'd be dead in a couple of minutes. It's got to be real. It's got to work.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1085253
#36. Changing from biochemistry to law was easy because I was rubbish in the laboratory. I could never decide how much to put in a test tube because I'm not very good at maths.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1088278
#37. I could be less impatient with people. I sometimes judge by impressions.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1097552
#38. When my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 1991, I asked him if he had any regrets, and he said no. I was a burnt-out litigation solicitor in my thirties, hating my life, and his cancer made me re-evaluate it all.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1107080
#39. I want to make the world real. I have to be able to believe that it could happen. I can't put Pegasus in my stories because horses can't fly. It's just a quirk in my brain.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1107977
#40. I don't use the Internet, as I don't like living with lots of distractions. I have tried, but I found it a hindrance. as my sense of priorities goes out of the window and it pulls me out of my writing, particularly with email. I'd sit there for hours just replying to emails.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1145089
#41. A man crawls into a tomb to die. A boy crawls in to live. You think that's chance?

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1166538
#42. There's this whole thing of being two people. You are the person you want to be - the writer - and then there's this weird other life of going on tour and talking about the writing. And that really is weird.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1230956
#43. The most remote place I've been to was in Greenland. I remember setting out for a solo hike from a small cabin, itself several hours' boat ride from the nearest settlement.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1262640
#44. Mostly, research is much more fun than the actual writing.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1308961
#45. Writing is a mysterious process, and many ideas come from deep within the imagination, so it's very hard to say how characters come about. Mostly, they just happen.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1328203
#46. I think true wilderness can still be found, but it's hard to reach and dangerous when you get there, which is probably why it still exists.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1333784
#47. A lot of my writing is wish-fulfilment, making things the way I want them to be.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1347816
#48. What kind of idiot bird sings in the middle of the night?... I wish it'd shut up and let me sleep! - Pirra

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1350495
#49. I'm not the next J. K. Rowling. We've got one already. It's flattering to be compared to her. I like her books and loved the first three particularly, but apart from the fact that they've got young boys as heroes, they're very different.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1376867
#50. Choas errupted amoung the watchers. They didn't think it was over at all. "He cheated! He used fire!"
"No, he won fairly enough!"

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1456492
#51. I've climbed Stromboli when it's erupting, which is quite a heavy climb: three hours with a helmet to get to the top. When you're there, and it's dark, and you can see this eruption and feel it, it's quite different to watching it on TV.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1473476
#52. Evil exists in us all, Torak. Some fight it. Some feed it. That's how it's always been.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1474355
#53. For me, inspiration isn't a sort of spark which lights the fire of the story. It's more like a thread, one of many, which you can tease out of a story once it's written, if you feel so inclined.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1518001
#54. Have you ever held a snake? They are so strong. You can see why there are so many myths about them: they are unlike any other creature. It's extraordinary how that little brain can keep everything moving in different directions.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1577487
#55. For a child, reading a book can be such an intense experience.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1582314
#56. I didn't wake up one day and think, 'I'm not going to have children.' My mother was a housewife and brought up three children, so I just thought it would happen.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1595379
#57. Toark woke with a jolt from a sleep he'd never meant to have.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1637552
#58. Doing field trips rather than simply researching online allows me to experience the story from the point of view of my main character; you can't get that by sitting at a desk.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1645903
#59. My novel 'Wolf Brother' is set in northern Scandinavia during the late Stone Age, so I was aware from the start of Norse influences. I used some Norse names, and the soul-eater Thiazzi is based on the Norse storm giant, Thiassi.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1654784
#60. My mother had to stop me reading to make me go and get some fresh air. I used to get so annoyed. She actually had to sit on my book because, otherwise, I would find it.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1695906
#61. Even if you plan your book, the actual writing is unplanned.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1746346
#62. Have you forgotten," she said in a furious whisper, "that he nearly killed us? That he threw my quiver in the stream, and threatened to snap my bow?"
It was unclear which she considered worse: threatening them or her bow.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1748766
#63. By about chapter six of 'Wolf Brother,' I was having so much fun that I knew I wanted it to go on and I couldn't tell Torak's story in one book. So I sat down, and it took me about a week to plan in broad outline all six books.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1754303
#64. I definitely don't write with any kind of 'message' or 'lesson,' probably because when I was a child, I used to run a mile from books like that.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1758469
#65. It's true to say that once I've got the bare bones of a story, I often get ideas from my own research trips to faraway places.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1768028
#66. I rode 300 miles through the forest and ate all sorts of strange food. And every time 'Torak' did something new, like swimming with killer whales or kayaking, I thought I'd better go and do it.

Michelle Paver

Michelle Paver Quotes #1780810

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