Latest Alice Mattison Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• 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

• 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

• I think you have to remember that writing is hard; my first editor used to say that to me.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing, Thinking, Editors

  Source: therumpus.net

• The main thing is to explain to yourself that everybody suffers.

  Alice Mattison

  Suffering

  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

• I don't really like to tell people to get out drugs.

  Alice Mattison

  People, Drug

  Source: therumpus.net

• I find that I get very excited about what my students are up to and that I get to be the hurdle they need to jump over.

  Alice Mattison

  Needs, Students, Excited

  Source: therumpus.net

• Teaching is very important to me, and it has become more important as I get older.

  Alice Mattison

  Teaching, Important

  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

• I just like doing it, I like writing.

  Alice Mattison

  Writing

  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

• Every once in a while someone says, 'You can't really learn anything, if you're really a writer then you wouldn't need to do it.' But I think what people need is the sense of not being alone. They go to MFA programs to be part of a community of people who care, and then you start caring about your friend who is trying to edit a magazine and your other friend who is stuck in the middle of her poem. There you have all kinds of things to worry about besides your own success.

  Alice Mattison

  Caring, Thinking, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• Being part of a community of writers is huge. I really think that's why people go to MFA programs.

  Alice Mattison

  Thinking, People, Community

  Source: therumpus.net

• This is true in other fields, too, that a legal aid lawyer gets a whole lot less money than a Hollywood lawyer who handles the estates of celebrities. Maybe the legal aid lawyer is doing something better, though, and maybe they're happier. It's not a completely unheard of idea, but I do think we have to remind ourselves at times to look for satisfaction in other ways.

  Alice Mattison

  Thinking, Ideas, Hollywood

  Source: therumpus.net

• Somehow we have to detach from feeling as though money is a quick and easy standard by which we can gauge how well we're doing.

  Alice Mattison

  Feelings, Gauges, Easy

  Source: therumpus.net

• Writers sometimes are paid a great deal of money, but much more frequently they're not paid or are paid only a little bit.

  Alice Mattison

  Littles, Sometimes, Deals

  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

• Inevitably we start by thinking that if our work is any good, we'll get money. It's as we would if you started up a business or if you work in another profession.

  Alice Mattison

  Thinking, Get Money, Profession

  Source: therumpus.net

• Maybe we're stuck with who we are.

  Alice Mattison

  Who We Are, Stuck

  Source: therumpus.net

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

  Alice Mattison

  Writing

  Source: therumpus.net

• Certainly children are being encouraged far more than they were seventy-five years ago and are more accepted as they are.

  Alice Mattison

  Children, Years, Accepted

  Source: therumpus.net

• Truly things are better in general now, in America, than in the past.

  Alice Mattison

  Past, America

  Source: therumpus.net

• Censorship is all around us, I don't think it's innate.

  Alice Mattison

  Thinking, Censorship, Innate

  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

• There's the belief that we can't be smart enough to write. And certainly censorship of women, too.

  Alice Mattison

  Smart, Writing, Belief

  Source: therumpus.net