Alice Mattison Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• When an editor first explained to me the difference between direct and indirect writing, I just thought it was a stylistic choice.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Editors, Differences

  Source: therumpus.net

• I remember I had had one woman who had three or four kids, and some of them were having problems. I said, 'Maybe you could go write somewhere else, away from your house.' And sure enough, all kinds of wonderful stuff emerged. She was keeping too much charge of herself because she couldn't stop being a mother when she was in the house. You have to find your own way of letting loose, if you're one of those people.

  Alice Mattison

  Mother, Writing, Kids

  Source: therumpus.net

• We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Thinking, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• Whoever would write books? It's suffering as well as greatly satisfying. And certainly there's suffering in the sense that you don't know for a long time how to do it.

  Alice Mattison

  Book, Writing, Long

  Source: therumpus.net

• It's a scary thing for fiction writers, when you're always writing from the point of view both as and for someone who is different.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Views, Scary

  Source: therumpus.net

• I love to read nonfiction and memoir, but I'm mostly interested in the piece of writing more than the person.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Pieces, Nonfiction

  Source: therumpus.net

• I don't have the courage not to write all the time.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

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

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Thinking, Two

  Source: therumpus.net

• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Race

  Source: therumpus.net

• 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

  Writing, Years, Two

  Source: therumpus.net

• 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

  Writing, Long, Periods

  Source: therumpus.net

• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Differences

  Source: therumpus.net

• When I've taught writing to five, six, and seven year olds, it's not very different than talking to an adult writer. They're writers then, and when they get to be young teenagers they're not anymore. You might go and talk to them about writing, and they'll be very self-conscious or will have detached themselves from the group.

  Alice Mattison

  Teenager, Writing, Self

  Source: therumpus.net

• We have to diversify, we have to find work we can do that helps other people while helping ourselves, work that has to do with writing that isn't necessarily just writing saleable novels or getting huge advances.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Helping Others, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• I don't think a white person can write accurately and convincingly about what black people experience of oppression.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Thinking, White

  Source: therumpus.net

• There is a lot of censorship about writing that's exerted from all directions, from families or governments and society, even the fear of being offensive in some way.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Government, Way

  Source: therumpus.net

• You may be somebody who writes best for a small press that doesn't pay very well, but you might have a fascinating and intricate style that might not appeal to as many readers but will be incredibly meaningful to the readers you have. Truly, that's as wonderful if not more wonderful.

  Alice Mattison

  Meaningful, Writing, Style

  Source: therumpus.net

• Anyone with an imagination can write about the day-to-day experiences of someone he or she is not.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Imagination, Day To Day

  Source: therumpus.net

• 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

  Writing, White, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• I just like doing it, I like writing.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

• I had never written about what it's like to live the life of a writer, and I had never read a book that combined talking about the life of writing and how you can do it, how you can stand it, how you can emotionally manage it, with the choices that we all make on the page.

  Alice Mattison

  Live Life, Book, Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

• 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

  Writing, Thinking, Keys

  Source: therumpus.net

• You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Mirrors, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• 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

  Writing, Mind, Different

  Source: therumpus.net

• Sometimes I write well when I'm very upset.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Upset, Sometimes

  Source: therumpus.net

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