165 Quotes by Grace Paley

I was fortunate that by the time I was born, there were a lot of comforts and at the same time I lived in a neighborhood where it was brought to my eyes every single day that people didn't live like me. Every day I knew that many of my friends "got relief." That was important in my thinking about the world, thinking that not everybody lived that way.

Art's too long and life's too short.

Art is too long, and life is too short,

I should have written more. I should have written more during the period when I just liked so much doing the political work in the streets.

I might write four lines or I might write twenty. I subtract and I add until I really hit something I want to do. You don't always whittle down, sometimes you whittle up.

Sometimes you find that what is most personal is also what connects you most strongly with others.

I know I've done good work. I've been very serious about my writing, and I've done the best that I could. But I don't feel that I've done more than I should have. In fact, I've done less than I should have.

I begin by writing paragraphs that don’t have an immediate relation to a plot. The sound of the story comes first.

The wrong word is like a lie jammed inside the story.