165 Quotes by Grace Paley

My job is to get people to write something truthful, something about truth and beauty - wherever they are - and to understand how literature is made. And then if they become great writers, that's great, and probably has nothing to do with me.

In the end, long life is the reward, strength, and beauty.

Every time you finish something ... you figure you've finally learned to write, right? Then you start something else and it turns out you haven't. You have learned how to write that story, or that book, but you haven't learned how to write the next one.

If you want to do things, do things.

In the park I met other women and I started to get interested in their lives. I developed a lot of pressure to talk about women's lives, and children's lives, too. Children interest me tremendously.

All that is really necessary for survival of the fittest, it seems, is an interest in life, good, bad or peculiar.

The best training is to read and write, no matter what. Don't live with a lover or roommate who doesn't respect your work. Don't lie, buy time, borrow to buy time. Write what will stop your breath if you don't write.

I see women as oppressed, but I don't see them as victims; I see them rising all the time. I see them as very strong.

I was a fantastic student until ten, and then my mind began to wander.