Quote

I think people feel for a long time that they ought to know how to write a novel in two drafts.

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
Long
Drafts
Time
Novel
Think
Ought
Thinking
Write
People
Two
Feel
Feels
Writing

More quotes by Alice Mattison

Image
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
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
Anyone with an imagination can write about the day-to-day experiences of someone he or she is not.
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
Little children are all writers.
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 don't have the courage not to write all the time.
Alice Mattison
Image
I don't really like to tell people to get out drugs.
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
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
Certainly children are being encouraged far more than they were seventy-five years ago and are more accepted as they are.
Alice Mattison
Image
In many cultures, women are sometimes literally kept from learning to read or from going to school.
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 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
Maybe we're stuck with who we are.
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
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 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 love to read nonfiction and memoir, but I'm mostly interested in the piece of writing more than the person.
Alice Mattison
Image
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