You have to really understand how people speak, and you have to reconstruct it... Most pleasure in writing, you know, is in inventing. — 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
