Mary Morris > Quotes

“The late John Gardner once said that there are only two plots in all of literature. You go on a journey or a stranger comes to town. Since women, for many years, were denied the journey, they were left with only one plot in their lives --
to await the stranger. Indeed, there is essentially no picaresque tradition among women novelists. While the latter part of the twentieth century has seen a change of tendency, women's literature from Austen to Woolf is by and large a literature about waiting, usually for love.”
― Mary Morris, The Illustrated Virago Book of Women Travellers

“A STUDY shows that if an American schizophrenic hears voices, they tell him to commit violence. And if a schizophrenic in India hears voices, they tell him to clean the house.”
― Mary Morris, All the Way to the Tigers

“Recently I realized that silent is an anagram for listen. It is the voice that comes from the silence that the writer or artist must listen to.”
― Mary Morris, All the Way to the Tigers

“It was in the in-between time when he felt lost.”
― Mary Morris, The Jazz Palace

“THE TAHITIANS don’t have a word that means “art.” The closest expression in their language translates to something like “I’m doing the best I can.” Ever since I heard this it has become a kind of mantra to me. I try and apply it to my own work, to my students and anyone who shares his or her work with me. If we live with the idea of perfection, we will never do anything. The notion paralyzes us, but doing the best we can, this is possible. I”
― Mary Morris, All the Way to the Tigers

“He wrote all the time except during those late-afternoon hours between night and day when he didn't know what to do with himself. When work was over and the evening hadn't yet begun. He saw people going about their business, on their way home on the streetcars, walking with the evening newspaper in their hands. He looked at the dull gray of the city as it settled to dark, the clatter of dishes, children's heads bent over books, cooking smells -- chicken, stews, soups -- drifting into the street.
It was in the pauses, in the space between notes, in the slips and breaks, a kind of slow steady interval as if one thing could lead to the next. As if you could go to sleep and wake up and it would be a new day and somehow things would be different than they'd been before. But Benny knew otherwise. Life didn't get better as it went along. It got narrower as if you were walking through a tunnel that was closing in on you, toward a distant beam of light that kept receding. Life got slower and the pauses got longer. Benny didn't mind the day when he was busy, and he waited for the night when he'd go somewhere and listen or play if they let him. It was the in-between time when he felt lost.”
― Mary Morris, The Jazz Palace

“Women remember. Our bodies remember. Every part of us remembers that has ever happened. Every touch, every feel, everything is there in our skin, ready to be awakened, revived.”
― Mary Morris, Nothing to Declare: Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone

“It's clearly easier to get the snake out of the sack than it is to shove it back.”
― Mary Morris, All the Way to the Tigers