Words matter. These are the best Susan Isaacs Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
As soon as someone is coming from New York, I automatically think I have to get dressed up.
Being a novelist is the adult version of a kid creating a make-believe world. But unlike a child, a writer of fiction has to come up with a structured story, one that has as much meaning for others as it has for her.
I was always the weirdo who wanted to have an egalitarian service in synagogue and felt I was always going against the grain.
I never failed at anything in fiction.
At the beginning, I really wanted to be home with my kid. I was a product of my generation. But in the suburbs, you are very isolated, really alone.
We joined a Conservative synagogue. I began learning through engagement, rote and reading. Suddenly, I belonged… well, to the extent that a novelist can ever feel she is part of a group; we may be part of a minyan, but we’re not fully merged into the community.
I love being a grandparent. I’m one of those you want to avoid – I pull out the iPhone and say, ‘Hey, wanna see my camera roll?’
I hate when people say, ‘Oh, they laughed all the way to the bank.’ That’s nonsense because the most cynical, unhappy people are Hollywood screenwriters. They earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for work that’s never made.
There is no ‘right’ way to begin a novel, but for me, plot has to wait. The character comes first.
My first novel, ‘Compromising Positions,’ was a whodunit. The protagonist was a Long Island Jewish housewife who turns private investigator. But she was Jewish the way I was: lighting Sabbath candles but envying her Protestant and Catholic friends’ December decorating options.
It’s no coincidence that I began writing the day my daughter started school. I knew everything I knew before I began to write, but I was raising two children and didn’t have the time to get to the typewriter.
I like to show ordinary people reacting to extraordinary circumstances. It’s an opportunity for adventure, and I like women to have adventures. There’s been far too little of it with women.
I have such admiration for Whoopi Goldberg as an actress and a general smart person.
I am married to a happy camper. He’s a criminal lawyer who thinks people are inherently good and will befriend him. His father, at 93, is the same way.
There are days where I lose track of time, of place, of everything else, because I’ve been transported to another universe.
As for writing novels – it’s what I’ve done for 30 some-odd years. I can’t suddenly say I’m going to take up golf. I need something in my life. As long as I can write a coherent sentence, I’ll keep at it.
I must have been yearning for some Jewish content beyond my genetic makeup because soon after my 21st birthday, I noticed I was no longer dating WASPs.
There are so many different worlds in Long Island. That’s why it’s so fascinating. Between Great Neck and Montauk, there are 10,000 worlds.
