Joyce Maynard Quotes

59 quotes in 938 categories

• I was giving a speech one time, and the woman who introduced me said, 'Well, she used to be J. D. Salinger's girlfriend. I thought,…
• Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity.
• When I was 12 years old, I read 'Nancy Drew' mysteries and biographies of Madame Curie and Florence Nightingale and books about girls who love…
• It's a great thing when a man knows how to dance, she said. When a man can dance, the world is his oyster." Adele, Henry's…
• You lay your hand against his skin and just rib his back. Blow into his ear. Press that baby up against your own skin and…
• The real drug, I came to believe, was love.
• No, I said. I didn't remember that. There was so much to remember, sometimes the best thing was to forget.
• She felt everything too deeply, it was like the world was too much for her.
• You write about what you know, and you write about what you want to know.
• The process of writing has always started for me when I put myself in a place where no one distracts me.
• One life is not enough for me. I want to go lots of places.
• I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to…
• It is not the task of a reader to please her subjects.
• It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful.
• Teach a child to play solitaire, and she'll be able to entertain herself when there's no one around. Teach her tennis, and she'll know what…
• The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks…
• Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power.
• For a parent, it's hard to recognize the significance of your work when you're immersed in the mundane details. Few of us, as we run…

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