“I have a basic indolence about me which is essential to writing. ... It's thinking time, it's hanging-out time, it's daydreaming time. You know, it's lie-around-the-bed time, it's sitting-like-a-dope-in-your-chair time. And that seems to me essential to any work.” ThinkingKnowsWritingSeemsLyingBedEssentialsSittingChairsHanging OutDaydreamingDopeIndolenceBed Time Book:Conversations with Grace Paley Source: Conversations with Grace Paley
“When I was about twenty-one, I published a few poems. Maybe I wrote a couple of stories before, but I really began to write stories in my mid-thirties. My kids were still little, and they were in school and day care, and I had begun to think a lot about wanting to tell some stories and not being able to do it in poetry.” ThinkingWritingLittlesStillsStoriesCareKidsAbleSchoolCoupleTwentiesTwenty OneDay Care Author:Grace Paley
“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.” PeopleThinkingMotherMysteriousRhythmImitationMaterialisticGeeseMother Goose Author:Grace Paley
“I was fortunate that by the time I was born, there were a lot of comforts and at the same time I lived in a neighborhood where it was brought to my eyes every single day that people didn't live like me. Every day I knew that many of my friends "got relief." That was important in my thinking about the world, thinking that not everybody lived that way.” PeopleThinkingWorldWayImportantEyeBornComfortMy FriendsLike MeFortunateReliefNeighborhood Author:Grace Paley
“The only thing you should have to do is find work you love to do. And I can't imagine living without having loved a person. A man, in my case. It could be a woman, but whatever. I think, what I always tell kids when they get out of class and ask, 'What should I do now?' I always say, 'Keep a low overhead. You're not going to make a lot of money.' And the next thing I say: 'Don't live with a person who doesn't respect your work.' That's the most important thing—that's more important than the money thing. I think those two things are very valuable pieces of information.” ThinkingMenShouldPersonsI CanTwoImportantKidsNextAsksClassCasesPiecesImagineInformationLowsShould HaveImportant ThingsValuableTwo ThingsLots Of MoneyShould IOverheadWork You Love Author:Grace Paley
“To translate a poem from thinking into English takes all night.” ThinkingWritingNightTranslateAll Night Author:Grace Paley
