Quote

I have a basic indolence about me which is essential to writing. ... It's thinking time, it's hanging-out time, it's daydreaming time. You know, it's lie-around-the-bed time, it's sitting-like-a-dope-in-your-chair time. And that seems to me essential to any work.

Grace Paley

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Grace Paley
Age: 84 †
Born: 1922
Born: December 11
Died: 2007
Died: August 21
Activist
Teacher
Writer
The Bronx
New York City
Time
Essential
Indolence
Thinking
Essentials
Daydreaming
Like
Sitting
Dope
Lying
Chair
Around
Hanging
Seems
Chairs
Writing
Basic
Work
Bed

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Well, you have children so you know: little children little troubles, big children, big troubles - it's a saying in Yiddish. Maybe the Chinese said it too.
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The only recognizable feature of hope is action.
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Just when I most needed important conversation, a sniff of the man-wide world, that is, at least one brainy companion who could translate my friendly language into his tongue of undying carnal love, I was forced to lounge in our neighborhood park, surrounded by children.
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In the park I met other women and I started to get interested in their lives. I developed a lot of pressure to talk about women's lives, and children's lives, too. Children interest me tremendously.
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It's a terrible thing to die young. Still, it saves a lot of time.
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When you have a peace movement that has an actual war, it's different from one that has wars that our country is not totally involved in. During the war in Vietnam, and to a lesser degree the wars in Central America where our country was directly involved, it was easier to organize.
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I did write a number of reports on my political experiences, but there were many omissions, and I feel bad about that because it was work that was interesting and had I written more about it, it could have been useful.
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A joke is necessary at this time.
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My family were Russian Jews. They got you to read as soon as you could. And then assumed you would read a lot. People didn't really tell stories but they were good talkers. That's important for a writer, to hear speakers.
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I am very interested in people trying to write because I don't have a big academic background at all.
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I don't believe civilization can do a lot more than educate a person's senses.
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I write for the still, small possibility of justice.
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That heartbreaking moment when you finish an amazing book, and you are forced to return to reality.
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You know the mind is an astonishing, long-living, erotic thing.
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It wasn't until I lived in the countryside that I began to understand the life of the countryside and the people in it and trees and water. Just learning about water is an education for a city person.
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I was a fantastic student until ten, and then my mind began to wander.
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You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.
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I should have written more. I should have written more during the period when I just liked so much doing the political work in the streets.
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Women should stick together. Didn’t you learn anything yet?
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No metaphor reinvents the job of the nurture of children except to muddy or mock.
Grace Paley