Alice McDermott Quotes
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All my friends had grandparents who had accents. I thought all grandparents were supposed to have accents. My friends were all second-generation, as I was.
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Loss is inevitable - you have to be blind or naive to think otherwise.
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I read a little bit of nonfiction and a lot of poetry. I think of poetry as my shot of whiskey when I don't have time to savor a whole bottle of wine.
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For immigrant generations especially, family is the first structure, or shelter, for a people who are in exile.
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I'm a coastal person. I grew up in Long Island and lived in San Diego. I felt landlocked in Pittsburgh. Psychically, it just wasn't the place for me.
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I'm a novelist. I'm not a crusader, and I'm not an editorial writer. And I'm not writing fiction to convince anybody of anything.
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A perfect poem you can't pin down and say, 'This is exactly what it meant to me.' It's not a self-help manual.
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Being Irish-American myself, Irish-American material is readily at hand to me.
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I guess I cringe when the discussion leads to, rather than books and sentences and characters and the stuff that writers are supposed to be concerned with, how to have an online presence and how many followers you have on Twitter. That stuff always makes me uncomfortable.
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I love a well-plotted story. But I'm just not that kind of writer, and it's not necessarily by choice. When I manipulate plot, I feel I lose authenticity.
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I'm always telling my students, don't - don't worry so much third person, first person. It doesn't make that much difference.
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In grammar school I read 'Act One' by Moss Hart, and being a playwright struck me as the most magical and romantic career anyone could have... But I never did write a play.
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It worries me that undergrads and high school students are forced into books they aren't ready for, like Faulkner's, and then they are afraid of putting their toes in the water again.
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I think 'Charming Billy' ultimately is a novel about faith and what we believe in and, above all, what we choose to believe in.
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At the beginning of every semester, I ask my graduate students whether there is something I should read that will help me understand their work.
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My own 'sentimental favorite' is always the novel I haven't yet written - I suppose that's the one I consider my 'masterpiece' as well.
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I have a great fondness for the liars in my stories.