Literary Birthday – 26 March – Elizabeth Jane Howard

Elizabeth Jane Howard was born 26 March 1923, and died 2 January 2014.

Nine Quotes

I have no bitterness whatsoever about anything that has happened to me. You cannot be a good writer without empathy. Novels in which characters are demonised rather than explored are one-dimensional.
Laughter is just like champagne — only without the headache afterwards.
You can’t run from feelings, Charity. You have to face them. Otherwise your future will look just like your past.
You’ve got to be pretty nervous about the challenge, the blank page – anything could be on it, it could be crap or it could be wonderful.
I’m 90. Writing is what gets me up in the morning
The real point of watching television is to forget that you have a brain.
I think best in a hot bath, with my head tilted back and my feet up high.
A good mystery keeps you up on Saturday night. A bad mystery puts you to sleep on Sunday afternoon. Either way, you come out ahead.
And it’s fascinating – the more you think you know about a character, the more you find out about them.

Elizabeth Jane Howard was an English novelist. She won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for her first novel, The Beautiful Visit, in 1951. She is best remembered for The Cazalet Chronicles.