Author details
All Joyce Maynard Quotes
Teach a child to play solitaire, and she'll be able to entertain herself when there's no one around. Teach her tennis, and she'll know what to do when she's on a court. But raise her to feel comfortable in nature, and the whole planet is her home.
Joyce Maynard
50% of people like this quote
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.
Joyce Maynard
50% of people like this quote
Long after Salinger sent me away, I continued to believe his standards and expectations were the best ones.
Joyce Maynard
50% of people like this quote
I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story.
Joyce Maynard
50% of people like this quote
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.
Joyce Maynard
49% of people like this quote
The painter who feels obligated to depict his subjects as uniformly beautiful or handsome and without flaws will fall short of making art.
Joyce Maynard
49% of people like this quote
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.
Joyce Maynard
49% of people like this quote
I wonder what it is that the people who criticize me for telling this story truly object to: is it that I have dared to tell the story? Or that the story turns out not to be the one they wanted to hear?
Joyce Maynard
46% of people like this quote
Women writers have been told, forever, that our stories were not valuable. Not as valuable as men's stories about wars, business, power.
Joyce Maynard
46% of people like this quote
It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.
Joyce Maynard
46% of people like this quote
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.
Joyce Maynard
46% of people like this quote
The portrait of my parents is a complicated one, but lovingly drawn.
Joyce Maynard
44% of people like this quote
Related authors