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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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Alice Mattison
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 18
Novelist
New York City
New York
Long
Books
Would
Suffering
Time
Write
Sense
Wells
Greatly
Book
Satisfying
Well
Whoever
Writing
Certainly

More quotes by Alice Mattison

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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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Maybe we're stuck with who we are.
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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.
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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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I just like doing it, I like writing.
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In many cultures, women are sometimes literally kept from learning to read or from going to school.
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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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You can't tell a writer they should just be more confident.
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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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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 love it when people can help me with my work, so I do show it.
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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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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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I actually think it's sometimes easier for the control freaks to let loose.
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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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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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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
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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
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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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You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.
Alice Mattison