Literary Birthday – 31 January – Patrick Gale

Happy Birthday, Patrick Gale, born 31 January 1962.

Patrick Gale Quotes

1. I’m under no illusions that the short story is an easy form simply because of its brevity. The few that succeed somehow pack the wallop of a novel into a tiny space.
2. It’s very depressing to hear people say that they read to relax and to fall asleep; what writers want to hear is that reading makes readers so keyed up that they can’t possibly sleep until they’ve read another chapter!
3. I worry sometimes that we’re apt to confuse forgiveness with forgetfulness. The potency of forgiveness comes precisely from the fact that it must be done while being goaded by an unhappy memory.
4. Like all their peers they went about things in the reverse order to the practice of their parents generation. They had sex, realised they got on really well then fell in love.
5. Try stepping right outside your comfort zone just for once, maybe reading a detective or a science fiction book if that’s something you normally avoid or a novel which seems to be aimed at the opposite sex. Reading is like any exercise in that its muscles get flabby unless they’re challenged occasionally.

Patrick Gale is an English author. His novels include Rough Music, Notes From An Exhibition, and A Perfectly Good Man. His latest novel is Love Lane. Gale is also a cellist, gardener, and patron of North Cornwall Book Festival, Penzance LitFest, and the Charles Causley Trust. In 2017 his two part drama Man in an Orange Shirt was screened by BBC2 as part of the Gay Britannia season. Gale was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2021. Follow him on Instagram.

Source for Image: Author Photo credit: Jillian Edelstein

by Amanda Patterson

Are you interested in more authors’ birthdays? Please click here: Literary Birthday Calendar