Grace Paley

"writers who are young or maybe just young in writing. To tell them that no matter what you feel about what youre doing, if that is really what youre looking for, if that is really what youre trying to understand, if that is really what youre stupid about, if thats what youre dumb about and youre trying to understand it, stay with it, no matter what, and youll at least live your own truth or be hung for it."

"We were accused of having been doomstruck the other day. And in a way we should be, why shouldnt we be? Things are rotten. Im sixty-one and three-quarters years old and Ive seen terrible times during the Depression, and I do think the life of the people was worse during the McCarthy period. I just want to throw that in extra. That is to say the everyday life, the fearful life, of Americans was harder in that time than this. But the objective facts of world events right now are worse than at any other time. And we all know that, we cant deny it, and its also true that its very hard to look in the faces of our children, and terrifying to look into the faces of our grandchildren. And I cannot look at my granddaughters face, really, without shading my eyes a little bit and saying, "Well, listen, Grandmas not going to let that happen." But we have to face it, and they have to face it, just as we had to face what was much less frightening."

"the possibility is that what we need right now is to imagine the real. That is where our leaders are falling down and where we ourselves have to imagine the lives of other people. So men-who get very pissed at me sometimes, even though I really like some of them a lot-men have got to imagine the lives of women, of all kinds of women. Of their daughters, of their own daughters, and of the lives that their daughters lead. White people have to imagine the reality, not the invention but the reality, of the lives of people of color. Imagine it, imagine that reality, and understand it. We have to imagine what is happening in Central America today, in Lebanon and South Africa. We have to really think about it and imagine it and call it to mind, not simply refer to it all the time. What happens is that when you just keep referring to things, you lose them entirely. But what if you think in terms of the life of the people, you really have to keep imagining. You have to think of the reality of what is happening down there, and you have to imagine it...thats one of the things thats most encouraging to me: to think that some of these young guys have been listening, and imagining the lives of their daughters in a new way, and thinking about it, and wanting something different for them. That is what some of imagining is about."

"I think the women’s movement is wonderful, a great thing. I hate to see some of the mean struggles within it, but I don’t see how it could exist without it. Everybody should try to be as honorable and truthful and fierce as they can be."

"if you don’t think history, you’re not thinking. You’re just not thinking if you cannot see a generation back. And if you do not think about the circumstances in their lives, then you don’t know what you’re thinking about. There’s no truth in the present moment. Now simply doesn’t exist without then at all."

"(What advice do you give to younger writers?) Have a low overhead. Don’t live with anybody who doesn’t support your work. Very important. And read a lot. Don’t be afraid to read or of being influenced by what you read. You’re more influenced by the voice of childhood than you are by some poet you’re reading. The last piece of advice is to keep a paper and pencil in your pocket at all times, especially if you’re a poet. But even if you’re a prose writer, you have to write things down when they come to you, or you lose them, and they’re gone forever. Of course, most of them are stupid, so it doesn’t matter. But in case they’re the thing that solves the problem for the story or the poem or whatever, you’d better keep a pencil and a paper in your pocket."

"one of the things that art is about, for me, is justice. Now, that isnt a matter of opinion, really. That isnt to say, "Im going to show these people right or wrong" or whatever. But what art is about-and this is what justice is about, although youll have your own interpretations-is the illumination of what isnt known, the lighting up of what is under a rock, of what has been hidden. And I think people feel like that who are beginning to write."

"When I came to think as a writer, it was because I had begun to live among women."

"that, I think, is really where lots of literature comes from. It really comes, not from knowing so much, but from not knowing. It comes from what youre curious about. It comes from what obsesses you. It comes from what you want to know."

"probably the education in nonviolent direct action couldn’t have been learned without a war. It had to take a war for people to learn that things could be defied and resisted. I think that was a very important legacy of the peace movement. (2000)"

"children’s writing is so often so beautiful, because it’s so close to their own true tongues. On the other hand, it’s very boring because they have no experience in life."

"There’s hardly a woman writer who doesn’t receive some kind of support from the women’s movement. We’re very lucky to be living and writing now."