an astonishing

You know the mind is an astonishing, long-living, erotic thing. Grace Paley

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Photo: Michael A. Muller

keep a low overhead

The only thing you should have to do is find work you love to do. And I can't imagine living without having loved a person. A man, in my case. It could be a woman, but whatever. I think, what I always tell kids when they get out of class and ask, 'What should I do now?' I always say, 'Keep a low overhead. You're not going to make a lot of money.' And the next thing I say: 'Don't live with a person who doesn't respect your work.' That's the most important thing—that's more important than the money thing. I think those two things are very valuable pieces of information. Grace Paley

Photo by James Nord via per temeritas

people will sometimes say

“. . . people will sometimes say, "Why don't you write more politics?" And I have to explain to them that writing the lives of women is politics" Grace Paley

Photo: Mociun

hello, my life

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.

I said, O.K. I don’t argue when there’s real disagreement. I got up and went into the library to see how much I owed them.

The librarian said $32 even and you’ve owed it for eighteen years. I didn’t deny anything. Because I don’t understand how time passes. I have had those books. I have often thought of them. The library is only two blocks away.

From "Wants," by Grace Paley. Painting by Amanda Blake.

a kind of fidelity

"I believe in a kind of fidelity to your own early ideas; it's a kind of antagonism in me to prevailing fads." Grace Paley. Photo Hedi Slimane.

let us go forth

“Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world.” Grace Paley. Photo by the lovely Autumn de Wilde.