115 Quotes by Alice McDermott

I'm a coastal person. I grew up in Long Island and lived in San Diego. I felt landlocked in Pittsburgh. Psychically, it just wasn't the place for me.

I'm very conscious of trying to make something epic out of something small and ordinary.

In grammar school I read 'Act One' by Moss Hart, and being a playwright struck me as the most magical and romantic career anyone could have... But I never did write a play.

I'm interested in characters who should know better, who know they should give up, move on, accept life as it is, with all its constraints - life, death, time - but don't.

I like that original romance of having a pen and a legal pad and going anywhere in the world and being able to write a novel with just those two things.

I'm more interested in character than events. I've observed that about myself as a writer. I find events, even the most dramatic sort, not to be such fertile ground.

I have not won far more awards than I have won.

I'm writing all the time. I tend to work on at least two books simultaneously. I'll spend time with one, and then I'll spend time with the other. Finishing takes whatever time it takes.

I'm not usually drawn to memoir - many run the risk of self-aggrandizement or score-settling.