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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
Nothing
Basis
Going
Bases
Think
Probably
Thinking
Wonderful
Life
Story
Happens
Stories
May

More quotes by Alice Mattison

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Teaching is very important to me, and it has become more important as I get older.
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Writers sometimes are paid a great deal of money, but much more frequently they're not paid or are paid only a little bit.
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I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.
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Maybe we're stuck with who we are.
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Telling someone to be confident in the abstract is not going to make it easier for the unconfident writer to actually get herself or himself to the point of being able to put in the upsetting stuff.
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The main thing is to explain to yourself that everybody suffers.
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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
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There seems to be a tremendous desire among many people now to know authors and how they work, to know what's autobiographical and what isn't.
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You can't tell a writer they should just be more confident.
Alice Mattison
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You may be somebody who writes best for a small press that doesn't pay very well, but you might have a fascinating and intricate style that might not appeal to as many readers but will be incredibly meaningful to the readers you have. Truly, that's as wonderful if not more wonderful.
Alice Mattison
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Inevitably we start by thinking that if our work is any good, we'll get money. It's as we would if you started up a business or if you work in another profession.
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I think you have to remember that writing is hard my first editor used to say that to me.
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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.
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It's a scary thing for fiction writers, when you're always writing from the point of view both as and for someone who is different.
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The making of fiction takes literally what is suggested by our imagination.
Alice Mattison
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I'm very secretive. I'll write a whole novel and revise it, which might take me two years or more, and the people I know best don't know what I'm writing about.
Alice Mattison
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Whoever would write books? It's suffering as well as greatly satisfying. And certainly there's suffering in the sense that you don't know for a long time how to do it.
Alice Mattison
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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
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Sometimes it's interesting to see what people who have too much control need to do to write freely.
Alice Mattison
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Sometimes people want to know how to write a story from the point of view of a murderer and make her sympathetic. I think the answer is that you start by having her look for her car keys, because everybody knows what it's like.
Alice Mattison