I saw my ex-husband in the street. I was sitting on the steps of the new library. Hello, my life, I said. We had once been married for twenty-seven years, so I felt justified. He said, What? What life? No life of mine.
Grace PaleyRead
The best training is to read and write, no matter what. Don't live with a lover or roommate who doesn't respect your work. Don't lie, buy time, borrow to buy time. Write what will stop your breath if you don't write.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of reading and writing as essential skills, while also stressing the need for respect in personal relationships.
Grace Paley highlights the critical role that reading and writing play in personal and professional development. She encourages individuals to pursue these skills earnestly and warns against compromising one's work and passion by surrounding oneself with unsupportive people. The call to 'write what will stop your breath' serves as a powerful reminder to create meaningful, impactful work that reflects one's true self and passions.
Themes
ReadingWritingRespectWorkPassion
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, to encourage participants to embrace their creativity.
More from Grace Paley
All quotes →…I go through a story for lies. I might discover the lie of trying to show off. Sometimes they’re lies of character. Sometimes they are lies of writing the most beautiful sentence in the world that has nothing to do with the story.
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You become a writer because you need to become a writer - nothing else.
Grace PaleyRead
I begin by writing paragraphs that don’t have an immediate relation to a plot. The sound of the story comes first.
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This hill crossed with broken pines and maples lumpy with the burial mounds of uprooted hemlocks (hurricane of '38) out of their rotting hearts generations rise trying once more to become the forest just beyond them tall enough to be called trees in their youth like aspen a bouquet of young beech is gathered they still wear last summer's leaves the lightest brown almost translucent how their stubbornness has decorated the winter woods.
Grace PaleyRead
Write what will stop your breath if you don’t write.
Grace PaleyRead
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