Poets take themselves very seriously.

I didn’t intend. The word “intend” is the wrong word for what I do. It’s just that it’s something you do, and you can’t not do. If you want to do it, and you don’t intend to, you do it anyway. The word “intend” is wrong. The word “pressure” is right. It’s like any art form.

The men don’t like their wives so much. They only get married if it’s a good idea.” Faith.

I liked the education. I liked people learning things all around me and I liked going to people’s classes.

Well, by now you must know yourself, honey, whatever you do, life don’t stop. It only sits a minute and dreams a dream.

I’ve started many novels, and they all ended on page seven.

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 am very interested in people trying to write because I don’t have a big academic background at all.

Paley said of her dreams for her grandchildren: “It would be a world without militarism and racism and greed – and where women don’t have to fight for their place in the world.

People say, “Why do you call your kids up, why do you worry like that?” And I say, “I was raised like that.” My grandmother looked at my father with the same eyes when he was sixty and she was eighty-five.