The wrong word is like a lie jammed inside the story. Grace Paley More Quotes by Grace Paley More Quotes From Grace Paley I liked the education. I liked people learning things all around me and I liked going to people's classes. Grace Paley class people …I go through a story for lies. I might discover the lie of trying to show off. Sometimes they’re lies of character. Sometimes they are lies of writing the most beautiful sentence in the world that has nothing to do with the story. Grace Paley writing beautiful lying If you're old and you're healthy and you're active - I don't mean you have to be politically active - if you remain interested in other people and the world, then you live as well as your health will allow. Grace Paley healthy mean people Sometimes before people know what they're saying, they already love the language. Grace Paley language sometimes people I loved the comradeship of the sixties and the seventies, and I still maintain friendships with the people I worked with then - the ones that are still alive. That's one of the great gifts of our political movements, great friendships . . . and also a few enmities. Grace Paley movement political people My job is to get people to write something truthful, something about truth and beauty - wherever they are - and to understand how literature is made. And then if they become great writers, that's great, and probably has nothing to do with me. Grace Paley writing jobs people Hindsight, usually looked down upon, is probably as valuable as foresight, since it does include a few facts. Grace Paley hindsight doe facts Good talkers are people who use interesting language and have a lot of energy in speech and who also listen. Grace Paley energy people interesting All that is really necessary for survival of the fittest, it seems, is an interest in life, good, bad or peculiar. Grace Paley good-life survival peculiar The word career is a divisive word. It's a word that divides the normal life from business or professional life. Grace Paley divides normal careers But what's a writer for? The whole point is to put yourself into other lives, other heads-writers have always done that. If you screw up, so someone will tell you, that's all. Grace Paley screw-ups screws done You know the mind is an astonishing, long-living, erotic thing. Grace Paley erotic mind long When you think of things that influenced your life, Mother Goose influenced more people than almost any other thing, the rhythms of those poems. Everything after that was a bare imitation of some of those mysterious and materialistic poems. Grace Paley mother people thinking Art's too long and life's too short. Grace Paley too-short long art I am very interested in people trying to write because I don't have a big academic background at all. Grace Paley writing trying people Old age is not a good thing. It can be really hard, and those of us who have it a little easier should keep in mind that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are not as well off. Grace Paley age mind people 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 done should-have writing 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. Grace Paley women important children We write about what we don't know about what we know. Grace Paley knows writing If you want to do things, do things. Grace Paley ifs want
