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I think a day in your life on which nothing bad happens may be a wonderful day, but it probably isn't going to be the basis of a story.
Alice Mattison
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Alice Mattison
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 18
Novelist
New York City
New York
Happens
Stories
May
Nothing
Basis
Going
Bases
Think
Probably
Thinking
Wonderful
Life
Story
More quotes by Alice Mattison
It's hard to say which of us is luckier, the ones who go through long periods when they can't write or the ones who can write pretty easily.
Alice Mattison
I think you have to remember that writing is hard my first editor used to say that to me.
Alice Mattison
The making of fiction takes literally what is suggested by our imagination.
Alice Mattison
I don't have the courage not to write all the time.
Alice Mattison
We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think.
Alice Mattison
I've been astonished how often, when I convince a writer to tell a story more straightforwardly and to tell it more simply and directly, it turns out that this author is great and the story is wonderful.
Alice Mattison
I don't really like to tell people to get out drugs.
Alice Mattison
I find that I get very excited about what my students are up to and that I get to be the hurdle they need to jump over.
Alice Mattison
I heard a white writer say, 'Oh, I'd never put black people in my writing, I'm afraid I would offend someone by doing it wrong.' I can't bear that!
Alice Mattison
I think that inevitably, the trouble our characters go through is a kind of metaphor for what's happening in ourselves.
Alice Mattison
In many cultures, women are sometimes literally kept from learning to read or from going to school.
Alice Mattison
Teaching is very important to me, and it has become more important as I get older.
Alice Mattison
You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.
Alice Mattison
I love to read nonfiction and memoir, but I'm mostly interested in the piece of writing more than the person.
Alice Mattison
There are so many different ways, most of them helpful and legal, to get yourself into a state of mind where writing is possible. It's going to be different for each person.
Alice Mattison
When I've taught writing to five, six, and seven year olds, it's not very different than talking to an adult writer. They're writers then, and when they get to be young teenagers they're not anymore. You might go and talk to them about writing, and they'll be very self-conscious or will have detached themselves from the group.
Alice Mattison
I love it when people can help me with my work, so I do show it.
Alice Mattison
Sometimes it's interesting to see what people who have too much control need to do to write freely.
Alice Mattison
I get to a certain point, and I think in a novel it's about the third draft, when I want other eyes on it.
Alice Mattison
We have to diversify, we have to find work we can do that helps other people while helping ourselves, work that has to do with writing that isn't necessarily just writing saleable novels or getting huge advances.
Alice Mattison
