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" To share our stories is not only a worthwhile endeavor for the storyteller, but for those who hear our stories and feel less alone because of it. "
Joyce Maynard
Only
Endeavor
Alone
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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. "
Joyce Maynard
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More
" 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? "
Joyce Maynard
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" The big dramas that fascinate me are the quiet ones that happen behind closed doors in so-called ordinary families. "
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" It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful. "
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" A good home must be made, not bought. In the end, it's not track lighting or a sun room that brings light into a kitchen. "
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" I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama. "
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" 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. "
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" Nothing like being visible, publishing one's work, and speaking openly about one's life, to disabuse the world of the illusion of one's perfection and purity. "
Joyce Maynard
Life
Illusion
World
" More than any other setting - more than battlefields or boardrooms or a spaceship headed for intergalactic travel - I'll put my money on the family to provide an endless source of comedy, tragedy and intrigue. "
Joyce Maynard
Tragedy
Comedy
Family
" Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I can only remember knowing one child, ever, whose parents got a divorce, and hardly any whose mother 'worked' at anything besides raising her children. "
Joyce Maynard
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" I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story. "
Joyce Maynard
Right
Believe
Own
" I had known there had been a serial killer on Mount Tamalpais, and it felt so incongruous in such a beautiful, peaceful spot. "
Joyce Maynard
Beautiful
Killer
Known
" For 25 years, I did take my responsibilities as a pleaser of others sufficiently seriously. "
Joyce Maynard
Take
Others
Did
" Many women my age have known the experience of giving up crucial parts of themselves to please the man they love. "
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Up
Women
" 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. "
Joyce Maynard
Young
World
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" If people choose to live their life in a way that does not confront the more troubling aspects of their experience, that's fine, if it works for them. But it will probably make them uncomfortable if they come up against somebody like me. So they just shouldn't! They shouldn't read my work! "
Joyce Maynard
Work
Me
Live
" You write about what you know, and you write about what you want to know. "
Joyce Maynard
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Want
" 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. "
Joyce Maynard
Child
Know
Home
" 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. "
Joyce Maynard
Him
Experience
Thinking
" The process of writing has always started for me when I put myself in a place where no one distracts me. "
Joyce Maynard
Place
Writing
Put
" I compromised my ability to tell my story, at the most basic level. "
Joyce Maynard
Ability
Level
Story
" One life is not enough for me. I want to go lots of places. "
Joyce Maynard
Enough
Want
Places
" Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power. "
Joyce Maynard
Women
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" If I told you about all the stories I don't tell, I would be violating the very boundaries I set for myself. "
Joyce Maynard
Boundaries
You
Tell
" 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. "
Joyce Maynard
Book
Writing
Story
" Although Salinger had long since cut me out of his life completely and made it plain that he had nothing but contempt for me, the thought of becoming the object of his wrath was more than I felt ready to take on. "
Joyce Maynard
Long
Life
Nothing
" It is not the task of a reader to please her subjects. "
Joyce Maynard
Subjects
Task
Reader
" Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old. "
Joyce Maynard
Old
Forgotten
Childhood
" It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself. "
Joyce Maynard
Children
Myself
Parents
" The silence was part of the story I wanted to tell. "
Joyce Maynard
Story
Tell
Wanted