You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else. — 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
'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
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
My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active moral life. — 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
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
“You write from what you know but you write into what you don't know.” — 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
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
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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
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 Image
…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 Image
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 Image
