Academics love to make theories about a body of work, but each book consumes the writer and is the sum of his or her world.
Jeanette Winterson

Always in my books, I like to throw that rogue element into a stable situation and then see what happens.
Jeanette Winterson

Anything outside marriage seems like freedom and excitement.
Jeanette Winterson

Art saved me; it got me through my depression and self-loathing, back to a place of innocence.
Jeanette Winterson

Confidence and superiority: It's the usual fundamentalist stuff: I've got the truth, and you haven't.
Jeanette Winterson

Creative work is incredibly difficult, and that is where the tests lie.
Jeanette Winterson

Everything in writing begins with language. Language begins with listening.
Jeanette Winterson

However it is debased or misinterpreted, love is a redemptive feature. To focus on one individual so that their desires become superior to yours is a very cleansing experience.
Jeanette Winterson

I am a writer who happens to love women. I am not a lesbian who happens to write.
Jeanette Winterson

I am not interested in genres. I am interested in doing the best work I can in whatever medium.
Jeanette Winterson


I believe in communication; books communicate ideas and make bridges between people.
Jeanette Winterson

I didn't mind being unpopular at school, because everyone else was a heathen.
Jeanette Winterson

I don't believe in happy endings.
Jeanette Winterson

I don't read reviews because by then it's too late - whatever anyone says, the book won't change. It is written.
Jeanette Winterson

I don't understand why people talk of art as a luxury when it's a mind-altering possibility.
Jeanette Winterson

I don't write for any group. I write to bring about a change in consciousness.
Jeanette Winterson

I had relationships with men as well as women. I wasn't choosing; I didn't think I had to.
Jeanette Winterson

I hate the word lesbian; it tells you nothing; its only purpose is to inflame.
Jeanette Winterson

I hated historical novels with fluttering cloaks.
Jeanette Winterson

I like to look at how people work together when they are put into stressful situations, when life stops being cozy.
Jeanette Winterson