BRIDGET WHELAN writer

for writers and readers….

A writer shouldn’t know what he is talking about…Grace Paley QUOTES FOR WRITERS (and people who like quotes)

child-2125964_640One of the reasons writers are so much more interested in life than others who just go on living all the time is that what the writer doesn’t understand the first thing about is just what he acts like such a specialist about — and that is life. And the reason he writes is to explain it all to himself, and the less he understands to begin with, the more he probably writes. And he takes his ununderstanding, whatever it is — the face of wealth, the collapse of his father’s pride, the misuses of love, hopeless poverty — he simply never gets over it. He’s like an idealist who marries nearly the same woman over and over. He tries to write with different names and faces, using different professions and labors, other forms to travel the shortest distance to the way things really are.

In other words, the poor writer — presumably in an intellectual profession — really oughtn’t to know what he’s talking about.

Grace Paley

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This entry was posted on September 24, 2017 by in Quotes and tagged , , , .

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