165 Quotes by Grace Paley

In a way he was lucky. He was a member of a generation that thought itwas a good, even joyous, political idea to put its brains, energy,labor at the service of the people.

To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night.

‏Don’t live with a lover or roommate who doesn’t respect your work.

I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library.Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified.He said, What? What life? No life of mine.

Remembering is organized for significance (not usefulness)

I checked out the two Edith Wharton books I had just returned because I'd read them so long ago and they are more apropos now than ever. They were The House of Mirth and The Children, which is about how life in the United States in New York changed in twenty-seven years fifty years ago.("Wants")

At this very moment, the thumb of Ricardo's hovering shadow jabbed her in her left eye, revealing for all the world the shallowness of her water table. Rice could have been planted at that instant on the terraces of her flesh and sprouted in strength and beauty in the floods that overwhelmed her from that moment on through all the afternoon.

Rosie, ah Rosie," dedi bana bir gün. "Gül yüzündeki saatten anladığım kadarıyla, otuzuna gelmiş olmalısın." (s. 17)

Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world.