Quotes by Pat Barker

About Pat Barker:

Patricia Mary W. is an English writer and novelist. She has won many awards for her fiction, which centres on themes of memory, trauma, survival and recovery. Her work is described as direct, blunt and plainspoken. In 2012, The Observer named the Regeneration Trilogy as one of "The 10 best historical novels".
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

We are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horr...

Pat Barker

Murder is only killing in the wrong place.

Pat Barker

I wanted to be a novelist from a very early age - 11 or 12 - but I don't think I ever thought I would write historical fiction. I never thought I might write academic history because I simply wasn't good enough!

Pat Barker

I don't think it's possible to c-call yourself a C-Christian and... and j-just leave out the awkward bits.' -Wilfred Owen

Pat Barker

It was... the Great White God de-throned, I suppose. Because we did, we quite unselfconsciously assumed we were the measure of all things. That was how we approached them. And suddenly I saw that we weren't the measure of all things, but that there w...

Pat Barker

The way I see it, when you put the uniform on, in effect you sign a contract. And you don't back out of a contract merely because you've changed your mind. You can still speak up for your principles, you can still argue against the ones you're being ...

Pat Barker

Didn’t you find it all … rather unsatisfying?” “Yes, but I couldn’t seem to see a way out. It was like being three different people, and they all wanted to go different ways.” A slight smile. “The result was I went nowhere.

Pat Barker

The sky darkened, the air grew colder, but he didn't mind. It didn't occur to him to move. This was the right place. This was where he had wanted to be.

Pat Barker

I believe that this war, upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.

Pat Barker

A society that devours its own young deserves no automatic or unquestioning allegiance.

Pat Barker

When writing about historical characters I try to be as accurate as possible, and in particular not to misrepresent the view they held. With a real historical figure you have to be fair, and this is not an obligation you have in dealing with your own...

Pat Barker

Being a writer is a poverty trap. I mean, it's a terrible profession.

Pat Barker

Fiction should be about moral dilemmas that are so bloody difficult that the author doesn't know the answer.

Pat Barker

What I hate in fiction is when the author knows better than the characters what they should do.

Pat Barker

My grandmother's first husband was a spiritualist medium. What fascinates me about that is the balance between conviction and sincerity and trickery, which is also something that novelists are very familiar with.

Pat Barker

When I'm writing the first draft, I'm writing in a very slovenly way: anything to get the outline of the story on paper.

Pat Barker

It's the hardest thing in the world to go on being aware of someone else's pain.

Pat Barker

First-person narrators can't die, so as long as we keep telling the story of our own lives we're safe. Ha bloody fucking Ha.

Pat Barker

I didn't belong to the sort of family where the children's classics were laid on. I went to the public library and read everything I could get my hands on.

Pat Barker

'Undertones of War' by Edmund Blunden seems to get less attention than the memoirs of Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, but it is a great book.

Pat Barker

Author Bio

  • NamePat Barker
  • DescriptionBritish writer
  • BornMay 8, 1943
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist
  • AwardsCommander Of The Order Of The British Empire