Joyce Maynard Quotes

She felt everything too deeply, it was like the world was too much for her.

It's not only children who grow. Parents do too.

A person who deserves my loyalty receives it.

The big dramas that fascinate me are the quiet ones that happen behind closed doors in so-called ordinary families.

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

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.

My job is writing. I get paid to do it. When was the last time you heard someone challenge a doctor for making money off of cancer?

The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn.

Before I had children I always wondered whether their births would be, for me, like the ultimate in gym class failures. And I discovered instead... that I'd finally found my sport.

Those who rhapsodize about the ease and joy of childhood have perhaps forgotten what it's like to be 12 years old.

If I told you about all the stories I don't tell, I would be violating the very boundaries I set for myself.

Some literary types subscribe to the notion that being a writer like Salinger entitles a person to remain free of the standards that might apply to mere mortals.

Long after Salinger sent me away, I continued to believe his standards and expectations were the best ones.

There is a theme that runs through my work, and that is: the toxic property of keeping secrets.

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 believed my story would be helpful to young women my daughter's age, who are still in the process of forming themselves as women, and in need of encouragement to remain true to themselves.

I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story.

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

I was giving a speech one time, and the woman who introduced me said, 'Well, she used to be J. D. Salinger's girlfriend. I thought, 'God, is that all I've been?' I didn't want to be reduced to that.

Every child, woman, and man should possess license to speak or sing in his or her true voice.

A good home must be made, not bought.

The word NO, carries a lot more meaning when spoken by a parent who also knows how to say yes.

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.

The silence was part of the story I wanted to tell.

One of the sad realities of being a parent is that the same stuff you know is exciting, educational, and enriching in your child'slife is often messy, smelly and exhausting to deal with.

Wherever it is you make your home, there is always this other place, this other person, calling to you. Come to me. Come back.

No, I said. I didn't remember that. There was so much to remember, sometimes the best thing was to forget.

The real drug, I came to believe, was love.

It's a great thing when a man knows how to dance, she said. When a man can dance, the world is his oyster." Adele, Henry's Mother

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.

For 25 years, I did take my responsibilities as a pleaser of others sufficiently seriously.

I compromised my ability to tell my story, at the most basic level.

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.

I had known there had been a serial killer on Mount Tamalpais, and it felt so incongruous in such a beautiful, peaceful spot.

I do not outline. There are writers I know and count as my friends who certainly do it the other way but for me part of the adventure is not knowing how it's going to turn out.

I think of myself as a realistic writer, not a creator of soap opera or melodrama.

[On home births:] In a house where there had been three people, there were now four, although no one had come in the door.

I continued to protect him with my silence.

When people ask what I write about, that's what I tell them: 'The drama of human relationships.' I'm not even close to running out of material.

It troubles me that people speak about writing for money as ugly and distasteful.

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.

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.

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.

Imagine if you succeeded in making the world perfect for your children what a shock the rest of life would be for them.

I tried to think of what my father would tell me. 'Don't let any boy give you shit.' But he'd never said how we should go about preventing this.