Home / Authors / Alice Mattison

Alice Mattison Quotes

Author

Alice Mattison is an individual whose profession and category are unknown. Specific information about her life experience, achievements, and contributions is limited.

Filter quotes by topic

All Writing Thinking People Sometimes Ifs Way Wells Different Knows Stories Wonderful Kind Might Needs Novel Order Persons Censorship Character Easier

Famous Alice Mattison Quotes

“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.”

Writing Book Choices Can Do Talking Written Pages Manage Live Life You Can Do It

Author:Alice Mattison

“Sometimes I write well when I'm very upset.”

Writing Wells Sometimes Upset

Author:Alice Mattison

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

Writing Firsts Choices Differences Direct Editors Indirect Direct And Indirect

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

Writing Different Views Fiction Scary Point Of View Fiction Writers Scary Things

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

People Thinking Needs Writing May Different Seems Might Race Orientation Viewpoints Ethnicity Different Races

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

Thinking Writing Kind Political Differences Messages Burden

Author:Alice Mattison

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

People Thinking Writing Persons Black White Oppression Black People

Author:Alice Mattison

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

Writing Imagination Day To Day

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

People Thinking Knows Want Writing Looks Sometimes Stories Answers Views Know How Car Keys Point Of View Murderer Sympathetic Car Keys

Author:Alice Mattison

“Sometimes it's interesting to see what people who have too much control need to do to write freely.”

People Needs Writing Sometimes Interesting Too Much

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

People Ifs Way Writing Kind Said Enough Problem Kids Remember Mother Three House Stuff Too Much Four Wonderful All Kinds Somewhere Else One Woman Being A Mother

Author:Alice Mattison

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

Writing Persons Pieces Memoir Nonfiction Love To Read

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

People Knows Writing Years Two Whole Might Novel Two Years Take Me Secretive

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

Writing Years Different Self Might Young Talking Five Groups Taught Six Conscious Adults Seven Teenager Seven Years Self Conscious Detached Be Young

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

Way Writing Government Censorship Offensive Government And Society

Author:Alice Mattison

“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!”

People Writing I Can Black White Heard Bears Black People

Author:Alice Mattison

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

People World Writing Fiction Mirrors

Author:Alice Mattison

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

Writing Enough Belief Smart Censorship Being Smart

Author:Alice Mattison

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

People Thinking Writing Stills Culture

Author:Alice Mattison

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

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

Writing Long Hard Periods

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

People Writing Helping Can Do Novel Huge Helping Others

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

Ifs Writing Wells May Might Pay Wonderful Style Reader Presses Meaningful Appeals Fascinating Intricate

Author:Alice Mattison

“I just like doing it, I like writing.”

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

Way Writing Mind Persons Different States Different Ways Helpful State Of Mind

Author:Alice Mattison

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

Thinking Writing Firsts Hard Remember Used Editors

Author:Alice Mattison

“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.”

Knows Writing Wells Long Book Suffering Long Time Satisfying

Author:Alice Mattison

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

People Thinking Knows Feels Writing Long Two Novel Know How Ought Long Time

Author:Alice Mattison

About the Author

Known for: Author
Quotes: 63

Related Topics

Writing Thinking People Sometimes Ifs Way Wells Different Knows Stories Wonderful Kind Might Needs Novel Order Persons Censorship Character Easier

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Men Giving Money, Women Yelling: A Literary Collection of Interconnected Lives in a New Haven CommunityRelated source material

The Book BorrowerRelated source material

Similar Authors

Joyce Carol OatesBrowse related quotes
Lynne TillmanBrowse related quotes
George SaundersBrowse related quotes
Stephen KingBrowse related quotes
Natalie GoldbergBrowse related quotes
William ZinsserBrowse related quotes
Paul AusterBrowse related quotes
David SedarisBrowse related quotes
Elmore LeonardBrowse related quotes
Philip GerardBrowse related quotes