Literary Birthday – 18 July – Margaret Laurence

Margaret Laurence was born 18 July 1926, and died 5 January 1987.

Five Quotes

When I say ‘work’ I only mean writing. Everything else is just odd jobs.
This is part of what writers do. They speak for people who cannot speak for themselves.
People have been saying the novel is dead for a long, long time. As far as I’m concerned, it’s still extremely alive. It simply finds new forms.
I hope that a sense of love does come across. If it does, it’s because what I feel most of all when I’m writing my books is that each individual human being has great value. Each person is unique and irreplaceable. They matter. Of course, that is a very Western world outlook. But it’s profoundly my own
In a sense writing a novel is a sort of discovery. You know more or less where you’re headed but everything could change in the doing of it. And, you know, you can be very surprised.

Margaret Laurence was a Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is also a founder of the Writers’ Trust of Canada. She is the author of The Diviners.