I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Sometimes it's interesting to see what people who have too much control need to do to write freely. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Anyone with an imagination can write about the day-to-day experiences of someone he or she is not. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I think you have to remember that writing is hard; my first editor used to say that to me. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Writers sometimes are paid a great deal of money, but much more frequently they're not paid or are paid only a little… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I love to read nonfiction and memoir, but I'm mostly interested in the piece of writing more than the person. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Whoever would write books? It's suffering as well as greatly satisfying. And certainly there's suffering in the sense that you don't know… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I'm very secretive. I'll write a whole novel and revise it, which might take me two years or more, and the people… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
When an editor first explained to me the difference between direct and indirect writing, I just thought it was a stylistic choice. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
It's a scary thing for fiction writers, when you're always writing from the point of view both as and for someone who… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Telling someone to be confident in the abstract is not going to make it easier for the unconfident writer to actually get… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
There are so many different ways, most of them helpful and legal, to get yourself into a state of mind where writing… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
We have to diversify, we have to find work we can do that helps other people while helping ourselves, work that has… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I think we need to develop the courage to write from the viewpoint of people who may seem quite different from ourselves,… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
You may be somebody who writes best for a small press that doesn't pay very well, but you might have a fascinating… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
When I've taught writing to five, six, and seven year olds, it's not very different than talking to an adult writer. They're… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Every once in a while someone says, 'You can't really learn anything, if you're really a writer then you wouldn't need to… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I remember I had had one woman who had three or four kids, and some of them were having problems. I said,… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I had never written about what it's like to live the life of a writer, and I had never read a book… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
It's hard to say which of us is luckier, the ones who go through long periods when they can't write or the… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I heard a white writer say, 'Oh, I'd never put black people in my writing, I'm afraid I would offend someone by… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
There's the belief that we can't be smart enough to write. And certainly censorship of women, too. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I don't think a white person can write accurately and convincingly about what black people experience of oppression. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
There is a lot of censorship about writing that's exerted from all directions, from families or governments and society, even the fear… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Being part of a community of writers is huge. I really think that's why people go to MFA programs. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Sometimes people want to know how to write a story from the point of view of a murderer and make her sympathetic.… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I think the difference between writing as someone and writing for them is that when you write for someone, you take on… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I've been astonished how often, when I convince a writer to tell a story more straightforwardly and to tell it more simply… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Sometimes indirect style and varying chronology is great, but quite often I've seen it be just something that gets in the way. It turns… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Every once in a while someone says, 'You can't really learn anything, if you're really a writer then you wouldn't need to do it.'… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
Whoever would write books? It's suffering as well as greatly satisfying. And certainly there's suffering in the sense that you don't know for a… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I get to a certain point, and I think in a novel it's about the third draft, when I want other eyes on it. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
It's hard to say which of us is luckier, the ones who go through long periods when they can't write or the ones who… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
“When a man I like touches my arm or my hair, I want to know if he'll touch the center of me, and whatever… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I heard a white writer say, 'Oh, I'd never put black people in my writing, I'm afraid I would offend someone by doing it… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
When I've taught writing to five, six, and seven year olds, it's not very different than talking to an adult writer. They're writers then,… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I find that I get very excited about what my students are up to and that I get to be the hurdle they need… — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I love to read nonfiction and memoir, but I'm mostly interested in the piece of writing more than the person. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
I think that inevitably, the trouble our characters go through is a kind of metaphor for what's happening in ourselves. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
When an editor first explained to me the difference between direct and indirect writing, I just thought it was a stylistic choice. — Alice Mattison Copy Share Image
