Mavis Gallant > Quotes

“Stories are not chapters of novels. They should not be read one after another, as if they were meant to follow along. Read one. Shut the book. Read something else. Come back later. Stories can wait.”
― Mavis Gallant, Paris Stories

“I still do not know what impels anyone sound of mind to leave dry land and spend a lifetime describing people who do not exist. If it is child's play, an extension of make believe - something one is frequently assured by people who write about writing - how to account for the overriding wish to do that, just that, only that, and consider it as rational an occupation as riding a bicycle over the Alps?”
― Mavis Gallant, The Selected Stories Of Mavis Gallant

“She was a pretty girl, with a pointed face and blue-black hair. But she was an untidy, a dusty sort of girl, and you felt that in a few years something might go wrong; she might get swollen ankles or grow a mustache.”
― Mavis Gallant

“Converts have it soft," said Mary. "They come to it late, without ever having had the Devil under the bed. They sail in and admire the stained-glass windows. All the dirty work has been done.”
― Mavis Gallant, In Transit

“If you listen at doors, you hear what you deserve.”
― Mavis Gallant, My Heart Is Broken

“All immigration is based on misapprehension.”
― Mavis Gallant, Paris Stories

“Writing is like a love affair: the beginning is the best part.”
― Mavis Gallant

“I am not interested in theories, she had taught herself to say, for fear of being invaded by something other than a dream.
But she was not certain what she meant and not sure that it was true.”
― Mavis Gallant

“My mother has lived every day of her life as if it were preparation for some kind of crisis.”
― Mavis Gallant, My Heart Is Broken

“The older I get the more grateful I am not to be told how everything comes out.”
― Mavis Gallant

“A woman can always get some practical use from a torn-up life . . . She likes mending and patching it, making sure the edges are straight. She spreads the last shred out and takes its measure: 'What can I do with this remnant? How long does it need to last?

A man puts on his life ready-made. If it doesn't fit, he will try to exchange it for another. Only a fool of a man will try to adjust the sleeves or move the buttons; he doesn't know how.”
― Mavis Gallant, Paris Stories

“No one is as real to me as people in the novel. It grows like a living thing. When I realize they do not exist except in my mind I have a feeling of sadness, looking around for them, as if the half-empty cafe were a place I had once come to with friends who had all moved away.”
― Mavis Gallant

“It happened that at the late age of twenty-seven I had run away from home. High time, you might say; but rebels can't always be choosers.”
― Mavis Gallant, My Heart Is Broken

“Like his father, like Jules Renard, he had been carried along the slow, steady swindle of history and experience.”
― Mavis Gallant, Paris Stories

“She and Marie were Montreal girls, not trained to accompany heroes, or to hold out for dreams, but just to be patient.”
― Mavis Gallant, The Collected Stories of Mavis Gallant

“There is a term for people caught on a street crossing after the light has changed: "pedestrian-traffic residue".”
― Mavis Gallant, Paris Stories

“If your life isn't exactly the way you want it to be by the time you are forty-five," said Walter's father, whom he admired, "not much point in continuing. You might as well hang yourself.”
― Mavis Gallant, My Heart Is Broken

“She could have lived in comfort, but I doubt if it occurred to her to try.”
― Mavis Gallant, My Heart Is Broken

“When workers are asked, in interviews, what they think of the students, they invariably refer to them as "our future bosses," and say they hope this experience will make better chefs of them than their fathers have been. French Revolution all for nothing?”
― Mavis Gallant, Paris Notebooks: Essays & Reviews

“Spring had been the season for dying in the old days. Invalids who had struggled through the dark comfort of winter took fright as the night receded.”
― Mavis Gallant

“In a big family, if you want to be alone, you have to get up before the rest of them. You get up early in the morning in the summer and it’s you, you, once in your life alone in the universe.”
― Mavis Gallant, The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street

“The children were small and still belonged to them.”
― Mavis Gallant, The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street

“Byla jsem ve městě, kde jsem neznala živou duši vyjma těch několika, které jsem poznala náhodou. Bylo to město, kde byla mentalita, zvuk jazyka, naděje a možnosti, dokonce i vzhled lidí na ulicích zvláštnější než cokoli, co bych si dokázala vymyslet. Moje rozhodnutí jet sem bylo cílené: měla jsem plán. Vlastní povaha mi připadala rozmlžená; to se mi zdálo nešťastné a zvláštní. Myslela jsem, že když se postavím před pozadí, se kterým nebudu s to splynout, vynoří se nějaký obrys. Ale nezdařilo se to, protože jsem se rychle přizpůsobila. Vmžiku jsem přijala vyjadřování a pohyby zchátralého Madridu, dokonce i jeho výraz v obličeji.”
― Mavis Gallant, Pozdní navrátilec: novely a povídky

“La verdadera vida de Carmela acababa de comenzar y ella no tenía dudas de lo que eso comportaba. Permanecería muda y expectante entre los poderosos y los extraños. Nadaría como un pececillo y aprendería a respirar bajo el agua.”
― Mavis Gallant, Las Cuatro Estaciones

“This is not a pleasant April. Some mornings the air is so white and still you might expect a fall of snow, and at night the sky expands, as it does in December.”
― Mavis Gallant

“By the time I reached the Invalides the rain has stopped. Instead of taking the shortest route home, I had made a wide detour west. The lights gleamed brighter than ever as night came down. There were yellow streaks low in the sky. I skirted the little park and saw old soldiers, survivors of wars lovingly recalled by Cousin Gaston and Papa, sitting on damp benches. They lived in the veterans' hospital nearby and had nothing else to do. I turned the corner and started down toward the Seine, walking slowly. I still had a considerable distance to cover, but it seemed unfair to arrive home before Arnaud; that was why I had gone so far out of my way. My parents could think whatever they liked: that he had taken a later train, that I had got wet finding a taxi. I would never tell anyone how I had travelled with Arnaud, not even Arnaud. It was a small secret, insignificant, but it belonged to the true life that was almost ready to let me in. And so it did; and, yes, it made me happy.”
― Mavis Gallant, Across the Bridge

“these have characterized the work of the best American story writers of the last half-century, from John Cheever to Raymond Carver to Lorrie Moore, and the best Canadians, from Alice Munro to Margaret Atwood to Clark Blaise.”
― Mavis Gallant, Varieties of Exile

“Reading some poetry early in the morning is a habit—I read it before I start to work. Whenever people say, Nobody reads poetry anymore, I think, Well, I do.” —”
― Mavis Gallant

“Gabriel si v té době ještě představoval, že všichni nutně vedou zhruba stejný život, přibližně na způsob polovyluštěné křížovky. Neustále shromažďoval definice a nová řešení. Kdykoli se ale přiblížil k druhým lidem, zjistil, že jejich životy nejsou křížovky, ale zašifrované problémy, a žádné dva se neshodují.”
― Mavis Gallant, Pozdní navrátilec: novely a povídky

“Noviny jsou útěchou ustaraných; lze je vstřebat bez čtení.”
― Mavis Gallant, Pozdní navrátilec: novely a povídky