Quote

People will sometimes say, Why don't you write more politics? And I have to explain to them that writing the lives of women IS politics.

Grace Paley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Grace Paley
Age: 84 †
Born: 1922
Born: December 11
Died: 2007
Died: August 21
Activist
Teacher
Writer
The Bronx
New York City
Politics
Lives
Write
Women
Sometimes
Writing
People
Explain

More quotes by Grace Paley

Image
To be modest means that you have something to be modest about.
Grace Paley
Image
Well, by now you must know yourself, honey, whatever you do, life don't stop. It only sits a minute and dreams a dream.
Grace Paley
Image
To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night.
Grace Paley
Image
I didn't intend. The word intend is the wrong word for what I do. It's just that it's something you do, and you can't not do. If you want to do it, and you don't intend to, you do it anyway. The word intend is wrong. The word pressure is right. It's like any art form.
Grace Paley
Image
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.
Grace Paley
Image
The women's movement was coming, but I didn't know it in 1956-1957, when I began to write.
Grace Paley
Image
Sometimes before people know what they're saying, they already love the language.
Grace Paley
Image
Today's wars are about oil. But alternate energies exist now - solar, wind - for every important energy-using activity in our lives. The only human work that cannot be done without oil is war.
Grace Paley
Image
We write about what we don't know about what we know.
Grace Paley
Image
I'm really sorry for people growing up right now, because they have some cockeyed idea that they can get by with their eyes closed the cane they're tapping is money, and that won't take them in the right direction.
Grace Paley
Image
I know I've done good work. I've been very serious about my writing, and I've done the best that I could. But I don't feel that I've done more than I should have. In fact, I've done less than I should have.
Grace Paley
Image
I didn't write any fiction until I was past thirty.
Grace Paley
Image
Women should stick together. Didn’t you learn anything yet?
Grace Paley
Image
Good talkers are people who use interesting language and have a lot of energy in speech and who also listen.
Grace Paley
Image
In the end, long life is the reward, strength, and beauty.
Grace Paley
Image
The only recognizable feature of hope is action.
Grace Paley
Image
I do lots of reading and speaking at many universities about literature and also about politics, which is as much a part of my life as the literature.
Grace Paley
Image
Waves, once they land on the beach, are not reversible.
Grace Paley
Image
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.
Grace Paley
Image
I've started many novels, and they all ended on page seven.
Grace Paley