Joyce Maynard

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“There is something about the act of studying an unclothed body, as an artist does, that allows a person to appreciate it as pure form, regardless of the kinds of traits traditionally regarded as imperfections. In a figure drawing class, an obese woman's folds of flesh take on a kind of beauty. You can look at a man's shrunken chest or legs or buttocks with tenderness. Age is not ugly, just poignant.”

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

“I continued to protect him with my silence.”