That heartbreaking moment when you finish an amazing book, and you are forced to return to reality. — Grace Paley Amazing book Copy Share Image
Rosiness is not a worse windowpane than gloomy gray when viewing the world. — Grace Paley Gloomy 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
Whatever you do, life don't stop. It only sits a minute and dreams a dream. — Grace Paley Dream Copy Share Image
I see women as oppressed, but I don't see them as victims; I see them rising all the time. I see them… — 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 believe in a kind of fidelity to your own early ideas; it's a kind of antagonism in me to prevailing fads. — Grace Paley Antagonism Copy Share Image
“The younger people with the ache of youth were eating all the cheese.” — 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
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
Today's wars are about oil. But alternate energies exist now - solar, wind - for every important energy-using activity in our lives.… — 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
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
If you're old and you're healthy and you're active - I don't mean you have to be politically active - if you… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
That's the trouble with stories. People start out fantastic. You think they're extraordinary, but it turns out as the work goes along,… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
When you have a peace movement that has an actual war, it's different from one that has wars that our country is… — Grace Paley America Copy Share Image
“My daughter has pointed out that there were not enough lovejobs to go around in this new world. In any event, I… — Grace Paley Children Copy Share Image
“Air was filtering out of my two collapsing lungs. Water rose, bubbling to enter, and I would have died of instantaneous pneumonia… — Grace Paley Ashtray Copy Share Image
“Oh no,” she says. Soft because I am the older one, but very strong. (I’ve noticed it. All of a sudden they… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
“I drank a little California Mountain Red at home and thought--why not--wherever you turn someone is shouting give me liberty of I… — 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… — Grace Paley Children Copy Share Image
Good talkers are people who use interesting language and have a lot of energy in speech and who also listen. — Grace Paley Communication Copy Share Image
If I miss anything, it's being able to hang out in the city of New York meeting people and talking to them… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
“The men don’t like their wives so much. They only get married if it’s a good idea.” Faith” — Grace Paley Faith Copy Share Image
Sometimes you find that what is most personal is also what connects you most strongly with others. — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
No metaphor reinvents the job of the nurture of children except to muddy or mock. — Grace Paley Child 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 Academic 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… — Grace Paley Age Copy Share Image
There isn't a story written that isn't about blood and money. People and their relationship to each other is the blood, the… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
In the park I met other women and I started to get interested in their lives. I developed a lot of pressure… — Grace Paley Children Copy Share Image
“In a way he was lucky. He was a member of a generation that thought it was a good, even joyous, political… — Grace Paley Generation Copy Share Image
I lived in a house in the East Bronx, a totally Jewish neighborhood on East 172nd Street. You didn't see Christians much,… — Grace Paley Bronx Copy Share Image
People say, "Why do you call your kids up, why do you worry like that?" And I say, "I was raised like… — Grace Paley Copy Share Image
My mother went to demonstrations. I remember her going to a big demonstration for Earl Brower and she came home crying and… — 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 Family 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 Beautiful 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 Hope Copy Share Image
