We have to give our poor, innocent, and undeserving-of-our-badness characters trouble in order to make them characters in a story. — Alice Mattison Badness Copy Share Image
I actually think it's sometimes easier for the control freaks to let loose. — Alice Mattison Control freak 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 Courage Copy Share Image
Inevitably we start by thinking that if our work is any good, we'll get money. It's as we would if you started… — Alice Mattison Business Copy Share Image
Anyone with an imagination can write about the day-to-day experiences of someone he or she is not. — Alice Mattison Day to day Copy Share Image
You can't tell a writer they should just be more confident. — Alice Mattison Confidence 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 Able 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 Different Copy Share Image
The making of fiction takes literally what is suggested by our imagination. — Alice Mattison Fiction 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 Books Copy Share Image
Certainly children are being encouraged far more than they were seventy-five years ago and are more accepted as they are. — Alice Mattison Accepted 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 All kinds Copy Share Image
Somehow we have to detach from feeling as though money is a quick and easy standard by which we can gauge how… — Alice Mattison Easy Copy Share Image
There seems to be a tremendous desire among many people now to know authors and how they work, to know what's autobiographical… — Alice Mattison Books Copy Share Image
I began to see, again and again, stories that were first confusing and second where the emotional impact was muted because the… — Alice Mattison Again and again 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 Culture Copy Share Image
If you have a character stand up and put on her shoes and open the door, in order to do that, you're… — Alice Mattison Character 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 Community 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 Books Copy Share Image
The main thing is to explain to yourself that everybody suffers. — Alice Mattison Suffering Copy Share Image
You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it. — Alice Mattison Fiction Copy Share Image
