Dating, like almost every other male-female interaction in present-day society, is based on outmoded and unequal social roles and expectations.

- Lynn Coady

You know the actor's nightmare is getting up onstage and not being prepared? I think the writer's nightmare is giving a reading and somebody standing up and saying, 'That's not your story.'

- Lynn Coady

I think, as writers, our first responsibility is to writing an honest story. Tell the story you want to tell, without pulling your punches.

- Lynn Coady

I started out in the journalism program, but I got kicked out. I wasn't very good at it. It wasn't where I wanted to be ultimately.

- Lynn Coady

I know what the Giller nominee effect is, but we'll see what the next level is.

- Lynn Coady

I just have to trust that the story is going to shake out in such a way that's going to be palatable to readers.

- Lynn Coady

I don't even like to cry in private.

- Lynn Coady

I come from a working-class background, and I thought I had to be studying something that would get me a job.

- Lynn Coady

Guys know how to read each other's signals. They know how to telegraph love for one another without throwing their arms around one another.

- Lynn Coady

Flowers are an easy, eloquent expression of love at a time when words can seem clumsy and inadequate.

- Lynn Coady

Filtering can be a very good thing when it comes to human relationships and familial harmony. Yeah, filtering is often an absolute necessity.

- Lynn Coady

True adulthood occurs the moment we grasp that the people who raised us do not exist solely for our comfort and reassurance. From that point on, the steady stream of unconditional love and support we've expected from them all our lives has to flow both ways.

- Lynn Coady

Anger is one of those emotions that doesn't follow the letter of the law. It speaks before it thinks. It rears up on its hind legs and charges.

- Lynn Coady

A bunch of chairs lined up in front of a podium equals school.

- Lynn Coady

That's all small talk is - a quick way to connect on a human level - which is why it is by no means as irrelevant as the people who are bad at it insist. In short, it's worth making the effort.

- Lynn Coady

There was a time when I thought dudes had friendship all figured out. The focus on eating things in front of giant screens, pretending to punch one another, competing over who can utter the grossest and most profane personal insults imaginable - this struck me as the very apex of human social exchange.

- Lynn Coady

Let's not confuse traditional behaviours with good manners. The definition of etiquette is gender neutral - it simply means we strive at all times to ensure a person in our company feels at ease.

- Lynn Coady

The process of writing a story isn't about fair. It's about getting to the heart of your story, getting to the truth of it. It transcends ideals of fair and unfair, right and wrong.

- Lynn Coady

Grownups, as a rule, should always be ready to pay for their own meals - or else ready to graciously accept their date's insistence on paying. The point is, one doesn't sit there batting one's eyelashes, fully expecting someone else to claim the bill.

- Lynn Coady

Here it is, 2011, and I feel zero shame when I tell you I would like to marry my smartphone. It is a handful of pure delight.

- Lynn Coady