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I really believe one of the jobs of a writer is to stretch as far as you can into other voices.

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
Voice
Jobs
Believe
Really
Stretch
Voices
Writer

More quotes by Grace Paley

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As an older person, I do feel an obligation to tell the story about what was really happening in the fifties, sixties, and seventies, as I saw it.
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To be modest means that you have something to be modest about.
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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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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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Good talkers are people who use interesting language and have a lot of energy in speech and who also listen.
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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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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.
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There isn't a story written that isn't about blood and money. People and their relationship to each other is the blood, the family. And how they live, the money of it.
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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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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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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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A joke is necessary at this time.
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I write for the still, small possibility of justice.
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To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night.
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Women should stick together. Didn’t you learn anything yet?
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I am very interested in people trying to write because I don't have a big academic background at all.
Grace Paley
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My vocabulary is adequate for writing notes and keeping journals but absolutely useless for an active moral life.
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Sometimes you find that what is most personal is also what connects you most strongly with others.
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The word career is a divisive word. It's a word that divides the normal life from business or professional life.
Grace Paley
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In the end, long life is the reward, strength, and beauty.
Grace Paley