Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alice Mattison
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 18
Novelist
New York City
New York
Periods
Ones
Pretty
Write
Hard
Writing
Long
Luckier
Easily

More quotes by Alice Mattison

Image
If you have a character stand up and put on her shoes and open the door, in order to do that, you're imagining her shoes and her clothes and her house and her door. The character becomes more real. But once you've done that, you can probably just get it all across with a couple of details.
Alice Mattison
Image
Certainly children are being encouraged far more than they were seventy-five years ago and are more accepted as they are.
Alice Mattison
Image
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
Image
Writers sometimes are paid a great deal of money, but much more frequently they're not paid or are paid only a little bit.
Alice Mattison
Image
Sometimes it's interesting to see what people who have too much control need to do to write freely.
Alice Mattison
Image
I think we need to develop the courage to write from the viewpoint of people who may seem quite different from ourselves, who might have a different sexual orientation or a different race or a different ethnicity.
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
The making of fiction takes literally what is suggested by our imagination.
Alice Mattison
Image
I think the difference between writing as someone and writing for them is that when you write for someone, you take on a kind of political burden or message, which I don't think we have the right to do.
Alice Mattison
Image
I love to read nonfiction and memoir, but I'm mostly interested in the piece of writing more than the person.
Alice Mattison
Image
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
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
I don't think a white person can write accurately and convincingly about what black people experience of oppression.
Alice Mattison
Image
I don't really like to tell people to get out drugs.
Alice Mattison
Image
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.
Alice Mattison
Image
I don't have the courage not to write all the time.
Alice Mattison
Image
Censorship is all around us, I don't think it's innate.
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
Sometimes I write well when I'm very upset.
Alice Mattison
Image
Being part of a community of writers is huge. I really think that's why people go to MFA programs.
Alice Mattison