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Alice Mattison Books

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“When a man I like touches my arm or my hair, I want to know if he'll touch the center of me, and whatever I learned in school--I went to school for a long time--I seem to believe that my center can be reached best with the tip of a penis....”

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Book:Men Giving Money, Women Yelling: A Literary Collection of Interconnected Lives in a New Haven Community
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“I began to see, again and again, stories that were first confusing and second where the emotional impact was muted because the big scene came before the explanation of what was going on. There was a reverse chronological order as well as a concealment of what exactly was going on. I think often that comes out of the fear of being boring, and sometimes I think it's just an attempt to seem clever.”

ThinkingFirstsWellsSometimesStoriesBigsSeemsOrderEmotionalSceneImpactBoringCleverExplanationAgain And AgainReverseConfusingConcealment
Author:Alice Mattison
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“Even murderers, I suppose, experience the loss of car keys the way the rest of us do. I mean, how can they not? Once you make this person scramble around the house looking for her car keys and finally find them, get in the car, and run into traffic, we can identify with her enough that when she stops the car and pulls the gun out of her purse and heads in to kill somebody, we'll be with her as much as is possible.”

WayMeanPersonsEnoughRunningHouseLossCarKeysGunTrafficMurdererPursesCar Keys
Author:Alice Mattison
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“For some people, it's very easy to be spontaneous and they can pour out the most wonderful stuff. But it's really hard to exert control over it, to think, 'Well, this could be different. This could go in the opposite order, there could be more here and less there.' For other people, it's much easier to have rules and a methodology, but much harder to let loose and allow their feelings to come pouring out on the page. They're more shy or they're just more distant from their emotions. I think everybody starts with one or the other.”

PeopleThinkingWellsDifferentHardFeelingsOrderEasyStuffEmotionWonderfulEasierPagesOppositesHarderShyOver ItSpontaneousPouringMethodologyBe Spontaneous
Author:Alice Mattison
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“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.”

PeopleIfsWayWritingKindSaidEnoughProblemKidsRememberMotherThreeHouseStuffToo MuchFourWonderfulAll KindsSomewhere ElseOne WomanBeing A Mother
Author:Alice Mattison
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“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.”

WritingYearsDifferentSelfMightYoungTalkingFiveGroupsTaughtSixConsciousAdultsSevenTeenagerSeven YearsSelf ConsciousDetachedBe Young
Author:Alice Mattison
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“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.”

ThinkingWayLooksIdeasWholeFieldsHollywoodSatisfactionAidsLawyerHandleEstatesSomething BetterUnheard
Author:Alice Mattison
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