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"I have long observed that the act of writing is viewed, by some, as an elite and otherworldly act, all the more so if a person isn't paid for what she writes."
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"It's not that the creative act and the critical act are simultaneous. It's more like you blurt something out and then analyze it."
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"One of the reasons why so few of us ever act, instead of react, is because we are continually stifling our deepest impulses."

"And what's more I've got no need for anyone to tell me how to do it. I am not interested. You act how you want to and leave me alone to do my own thing."

"We have a right, also, in various ways, to act upon our unfavorable opinion of anyone, not to the oppression of his individuality, but in the exercise of ours."

"I grew up in the 1950s and '60s, when it was almost a holiday when a black act would go on Ed Sullivan."

"Whatever you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon... must inevitably come to pass!"
Explore more quotes by Joyce Maynard

"At Home in the World is the story of a young woman, raised in some difficult circumstances, and how she survives. It tells a story of redemption, not victimhood."

"The vehemence with which certain critics have chosen not simply to criticize what I've written, but to challenge my writing this story at all, speaks of what the book is about: fear of disapproval."

"I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear?"

"If a man wishes to truly not be written about, he would do well not to write letters to 18-year-old girls, inviting them into his life."

"Teach a child to play solitaire, and she'll be able to entertain herself when there's no one around. Teach her tennis, and she'll know what to do when she's on a court. But raise her to feel comfortable in nature, and the whole planet is her home."

"Many women my age have known the experience of giving up crucial parts of themselves to please the man they love."

"Not only did I avoid speaking of Salinger; I resisted thinking about him. I did not reread his letters to me. The experience had been too painful."

"The painter who feels obligated to depict his subjects as uniformly beautiful or handsome and without flaws will fall short of making art."
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