Paula Fox

“I taught writing classes at the University of Pennsylvania for a number of years and I realized that all you can do is encourage people and give them assignments and hope they will write them.”

“I like to cook; it is, for me, a happy combination of mindlessness and purpose.”

“My father brought me a box of books once when I was about three and a half or four. I remember the carton they were in and the covers with illustrations by Newell C. Wyeth.”

“I don't like to listen to music while I'm working.”

“In my early twenties, that's when I really began to write. Before that, I was too busy working, keeping myself going.”

“I don't know what makes a writer's voice. It's dozens of things. There are people who write who don't have it. They're tone-deaf, even though they're very fluent. It's an ability, like anything else, being a doctor or a veterinarian, or a musician.”

“Words are nets through which all truth escapes("News From The World")”

“There's a certain amount of tyranny in all of us to some extent, and in some people it's much more developed than in others. It's a different balance which makes us all different.”

“My first job was working in a dress shop in Los Angeles in 1940, for $7 a week.”

“When you read to a child, when you put a book in a child's hands, you are bringing that child news of the infinitely varied nature of life. You are an awakener.”

“I've always known a lot of very bad people, destructive, brutes of a certain kind. Then I've seen these lovely impulses and what not, and they've stayed with me and comforted me.”

“I have a painter's memory. I can remember things from my childhood which were so powerfully imprinted on me, the whole scene comes back.”

“A good novel begins with a small question and ends with a bigger one.”