Quote

There's the belief that we can't be smart enough to write. And certainly censorship of women, too.

Alice Mattison

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alice Mattison
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 18
Novelist
New York City
New York
Enough
Writing
Censorship
Smart
Certainly
Belief
Write
Women

More quotes by Alice Mattison

Image
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
Image
We have to give our poor, innocent, and undeserving-of-our-badness characters trouble in order to make them characters in a story.
Alice Mattison
Image
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
Image
I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.
Alice Mattison
Image
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
Image
Sometimes I write well when I'm very upset.
Alice Mattison
Image
The making of fiction takes literally what is suggested by our imagination.
Alice Mattison
Image
Teaching is very important to me, and it has become more important as I get older.
Alice Mattison
Image
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
Image
I just like doing it, I like writing.
Alice Mattison
Image
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.
Alice Mattison
Image
Anyone with an imagination can write about the day-to-day experiences of someone he or she is not.
Alice Mattison
Image
You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.
Alice Mattison
Image
I think that inevitably, the trouble our characters go through is a kind of metaphor for what's happening in ourselves.
Alice Mattison
Image
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
Image
I don't think a white person can write accurately and convincingly about what black people experience of oppression.
Alice Mattison
Image
I think you have to remember that writing is hard my first editor used to say that to me.
Alice Mattison
Image
I don't really like to tell people to get out drugs.
Alice Mattison
Image
We're always inventing, even if we're making someone who's fairly close to ourselves.
Alice Mattison
Image
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