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Quote by Mavis Gallant

“Writing is like a love affair: the beginning is the best part.”

Quote by Mavis Gallant

Author

Mavis Gallant, born on August 11, 1922 in Montreal, Canada, was an outstanding Canadian writer. Her works are renowned for their delicate psychological portrayal and unique narrative techniques, and she is widely considered one of the most important English-language writers of the 20th century. more

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“All lives are interesting; no one life is more interesting than another. Its fascination depends on how much is revealed, and in what manner.”

Life Is Interesting Depends Fascination

Author:Mavis Gallant

“Like every other form of art, literature is no more and nothing less than a matter of life and death. The only question worth asking about a story — or a poem, or a piece of sculpture, or a new concert hall — is, Is it dead or alive?”

Art Matter Stories Form Literature Pieces Alive Asking Life And Death Halls Concerts Sculpture

Author:Mavis Gallant

“No one is as real to me as people in the novel. It grows like a living thing. When I realize they do not exist except in my mind I have a feeling of sadness, looking around for them, as if the half-empty cafe were a place I had once come to with friends who had all moved away.”

People Ifs Mind Real Feelings Grows Realizing Half Novel Sadness Empty Moved Living Things Cafes Half Empty

Author:Mavis Gallant

“I believed that if I was to call myself a writer, I should live on writing. If I could not live on it, even simply, I should destroy every scrap, every trace, every notebook and live some other way.”

Ifs Way Should Writing If I Could Notebook Scrap

Book:The Collected Stories

Source: The Collected Stories

“I write every day as a matter of course It is not a burden. It is the way I live.”

Way Writing Matter Courses Burden

Author:Mavis Gallant

“I wanted to live in Paris and write nothing but fiction and be perfectly free. I had decided all this had to be settled by the time I was thirty, and so I gave up my job and moved to Paris at twenty-eight. I just held my breath and jumped. I didn’t even look to see if there was water in the pool.”

Ifs Writing Looks Wanted Jobs Water Fiction Decided Twenties Breaths Moved Eight Paris Thirty Pool Gave Up

Author:Mavis Gallant

“There is something I keep wanting to say about reading short stories. I am doing it now, because I many never have another occasion. Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.”

Ifs Should Book Stories Reading Waiting Novel Occasions Short Story Chapters

Book:The Collected Stories

Source: The Collected Stories

“Caution, Sir! I am eternally tired of hearing that word caution. It is nothing but the word of cowardice!”

Tired Hearing Cowardice Caution

Author:John Brown

“I don't think the people of the slave states will ever consider the subject of slavery in its true light till some other argument is resorted to other than moral persuasion.”

People Thinking States Light Moral Subjects Argument Slavery Slave Persuasion

Book:The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas and Martyr of Virginia

Source: The Life and Letters of John Brown, Liberator of Kansas and Martyr of Virginia

“I have been whipped, as the saying is, but I am sure I can recover all the lost capital occasioned by that disaster; by only hanging a few moments by the neck; and I feel quite determined to make the utmost possible out of a defeat.”

Feels Has Beens I Can Moments Lost Defeat Determined Disaster Necks

Author:John Brown