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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

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

More quotes by Alice Mattison

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I don't have the courage not to write all the time.
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Little children are all writers.
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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.
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We're always inventing, even if we're making someone who's fairly close to ourselves.
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I love it when people can help me with my work, so I do show it.
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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.
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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'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.
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There's the belief that we can't be smart enough to write. And certainly censorship of women, too.
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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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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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Sometimes it's interesting to see what people who have too much control need to do to write freely.
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The main thing is to explain to yourself that everybody suffers.
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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.
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Being part of a community of writers is huge. I really think that's why people go to MFA programs.
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When an editor first explained to me the difference between direct and indirect writing, I just thought it was a stylistic choice.
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Somehow we have to detach from feeling as though money is a quick and easy standard by which we can gauge how well we're doing.
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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.
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.
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I just like doing it, I like writing.
Alice Mattison