The women's movement was coming, but I didn't know it in 1956-1957, when I began to write. — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
“You write from what you know but you write into what you don't know.” — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else. — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I really believe one of the jobs of a writer is to stretch as far as you can into other voices. — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I read a lot. I liked a tremendous number of poets and writers. The person whose work I liked the most was… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
But what's a writer for? The whole point is to put yourself into other lives, other heads-writers have always done that. If… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I should have written more. I should have written more during the period when I just liked so much doing the political… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
Writing poetry, which for me was then saying how I felt about this and that, didn't help me to understand the world… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I begin by writing paragraphs that don’t have an immediate relation to a plot. The sound of the story comes first. — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
You have to really understand how people speak, and you have to reconstruct it... Most pleasure in writing, you know, is in… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
People will sometimes say, "Why don't you write more politics?" And I have to explain to them that writing the lives of… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I am very interested in people trying to write because I don't have a big academic background at all. — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I did write a number of reports on my political experiences, but there were many omissions, and I feel bad about that… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
'The Immigrant Story,' which took me about twenty-five years to write, was a very simple story, but I couldn't think of how… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
My job is to get people to write something truthful, something about truth and beauty - wherever they are - and to… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
My language limitations here are real. My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I know I've done good work. I've been very serious about my writing, and I've done the best that I could. But… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I didn't intend to become a short-story writer. I became one because I finished a couple of short stories and realized that's… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
When I was about twenty-one, I published a few poems. Maybe I wrote a couple of stories before, but I really began… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
The best training is to read and write, no matter what. Don't live with a lover or roommate who doesn't respect your… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I might write four lines or I might write twenty. I subtract and I add until I really hit something I want… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active moral life. — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
In prose, I think you sometimes have to write in very plain language, where every line may not seem to be so… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
Every time you finish something ... you figure you've finally learned to write, right? Then you start something else and it turns… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
…I go through a story for lies. I might discover the lie of trying to show off. Sometimes they’re lies of character.… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
My family were Russian Jews. They got you to read as soon as you could. And then assumed you would read a… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
“... plot, the absolute line between two points which I've always despised. Not for literary reasons, but because it takes all hope… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I was a woman writing at the early moment when small drops of worried resentment and noble rage were secretly, slowly building… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
I have a basic indolence about me which is essential to writing. ... It's thinking time, it's hanging-out time, it's daydreaming time.… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
“Near home I ran through our park, where I had aired my children on weekends and late-summer afternoons. I stopped at the northeast playground,… — Grace Paley Copy Share
Old age is not a good thing. It can be really hard, and those of us who have it a little easier should keep… — Grace Paley Copy Share
Well, by now you must know yourself, honey, whatever you do, life don't stop. It only sits a minute and dreams a dream. — Grace Paley Copy Share
The women's movement was coming, but I didn't know it in 1956-1957, when I began to write. — Grace Paley Copy Share
It wasn't until I lived in the countryside that I began to understand the life of the countryside and the people in it and… — Grace Paley Copy Share
…I go through a story for lies. I might discover the lie of trying to show off. Sometimes they’re lies of character. Sometimes they… — Grace Paley Copy Share
I didn't intend. The word "intend" is the wrong word for what I do. It's just that it's something you do, and you can't… — Grace Paley Copy Share
“... plot, the absolute line between two points which I've always despised. Not for literary reasons, but because it takes all hope away. Everyone,… — Grace Paley Copy Share
When I was about twenty-one, I published a few poems. Maybe I wrote a couple of stories before, but I really began to write… — Grace Paley Copy Share
