Literary Birthday – 29 March – Judith Guest

Happy Birthday, Judith Guest, born 29 March 1936.

Judith Guest Quotes

1. Some people with awful cards can be successful because of how they deal with the tragedies they’re handed, and that seems courageous to me.
2. People who keep stiff upper lips find that it’s damn hard to smile.
3. It’s true that every day away from work requires two more days to get back into it.
4. I notice when I’m on these trips, I read like mad. It’s the only thing that seems to centre me, bring me back to remembering who I am. Or forgetting who I am!
5. Depending on the reality one must face, one may prefer to opt for illusion.
6. Make notes—I’ve lost more material than I’ve ever written. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not still up there in one’s brain. It’s in outer space and it ain’t coming back.

Judith Guest is an American novelist and screenwriter. She is most famous for writing Ordinary People. Ordinary People was adapted into the 1980 film of the same name that went on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. This novel and two others, Second Heaven, and Errands, are about adolescents forced to deal with crises in their families. She is a recipient of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Guest’s most recent book, The Tarnished Eye, is loosely based on a real unsolved crime in her native Michigan.

Source for Image: Via author’s publicist (credit unknown)

by Amanda Patterson

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